Autumn Bane
by Torenza
Summary: IYKa. AU. Marriage seems inevitable for the couple who can’t stand each other. [A Swan Lake parody]
1. The Dragon's Castle

**Author's Notes: **After a lot of debating and suggestions I finally found a good title for the fic (I really couldn't think of one for once). So my thanks go out to Adia for suggesting it ^_^

As you will discover as you read, this is like a retelling of **The Swan Princess**. I love fairytales and classic stories and the plot of Swan Princess always drew me, so for once I'll be drawing elements off another story into one of my own (or does this mean I'm running out of ideas for stories?)

Right. Now that I've made myself out to be a complete incompetent when it comes to titles (refer to my other stories to see how bad the other titles are) I better get on with the story. 

**Autumn Bane**

**Chapter 1**

**The Dragon's Castle**

_~Kagome~_

The morning was a little too cold for my taste. Not quite cold enough to bring snow and a touch of interest to the scenery, but still bitter enough to make me shiver and stamp my feet to try and chase out the chill in my limbs. I hated the cold… and I could already tell that I would probably have a cold in the morning, my throat felt dry and cold whilst my head felt warm and muggy.

Autumn used to be my favourite time of the year. It was a safe kind of season, that brought around a change in the world around me. The long, hard summer's heat would fade away, along with the droughts and would be replaced by a cooler, more neutral landscape. The leaves would turn from green to more exotic shades of red and orange, even yellow, and they would stay that way until they began to slowly flutter down to earth.

I _used _to like Autumn. But now I lived for winter. Winter brought the end of autumn, and it would be a whole three seasons before Autumn came back around. Spring was nice… but it was halfway to Autumn which wasn't so nice. Summer was worse… because Autumn was always pressing just around the corner and before I knew it, Fall had arrived.

I'm sure if there was a phobia of Autumn, I would have it. But rather instead of having this irrational fear of that season, I just get very, _very _depressed. Now when the weather turned cold like today, all I could do was sigh and grumble, internally at least. If my mother ever caught me sighing or acting miserable she'd probably take me behind a screen and slap me.

Yet another muddy, brown leaf detached from the tree over me and twirled its way down. I just happened to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time and the large leaf hit me on the cheek with a wet sounding slap and stuck there. I twitched my cheek slightly… but it wasn't working.

A few metres ahead of me I caught my mother turning to look at me, spotted the leaf on my face and sighed. I was a disappointment, I know, but she didn't have to hint it all the time. Sango, who stood just beside me, followed my mother's eyes, but instead of sighing at the leaf, she giggled slightly and reached up to peel it off my cheek.

"Thank you." I mumbled, bringing my sleeve up to wipe the wet patch off my skin. Sango was quicker, she stilled my arm and did it for me.

At times like this I felt like a complete child. I wasn't even allowed to clean my own cheek. Well at least she didn't bring out the handkerchief and spit on it before scrubbing my skin like my old hand-maid used to do. But then again, if she did that she would probably smear my perfect make-up, which was a big no-no.

This was the trouble with being a Hime… I could barely do anything myself, especially outside in public.

We were waiting on the docks, standing on the wooden pier at the edge of the channel and looking out across the sea. If I squinted my eyes I could just about make out a thin little line on the horizon which was the land we would be sailing to. If the ship ever arrived that was…

"I want to go home…" I muttered to Sango.

"You always want to go home." She responded evenly, keeping her eyes peeled on the boat that was creeping its way ever so slowly across the water towards us. I didn't give a toss about watching it's progress, seeing as how I was too busy darting my eyes all over the place, looking for an escape.

"I _really _want to go home." I repeated, stressing my words. "I'm cold, tired, hungry and I can't feel my feet anymore."

"Shh." She said discreetly as my mother glanced back at us again. I sealed my lips momentarily until her attention passed and I could talk again.

"Can't you convince her that I don't want to go to Toshiyama?" I had resorted to pleading with my own maid to speak to my mother on my behalf. Well… she probably had a better relationship with the woman.

"But we've done this every Autumn." Sango whispered. "Why are you so averted to going this time?"

Because I'd finally realised that I hated these Autumn trips to Toshiyama. Ever since I was six my mother had packed up most of the household and put us on a boat across the channel to another country – Toshiyama. We always went to stay at the same place, with the same people, for the whole of the Autumn, and when the first snow fell we would turn around and go home again.

I loved the going home part of these trips.

"These little 'holidays' are pointless and boring," More like stressful and nerve-wracking. "I don't think I could take another year without cracking up."

"It's not too bad." Sango encouraged. But of course she could say that, she'd never been to Toshiyama before. She had no idea what it was like over there… if she thought it would be a pleasant break from our own country, then she was up for a bad shock soon. "I'd really like to see Toshiyama." Sango went on. "I heard they have lovely scenery up there."

"Yes the trees are nice but the-"

"Oh! It's docking." Sango effectively shut me up and I fell silent as the boat groaned into it's moors and the servants and soldiers around us began to move forward to secure it. Us women stayed put until everything was in place and the little wooden bridge had been lowered to allow us on. My mother boarded first.

My feet froze. I couldn't move.

"Kagome…" Sango tried to encourage me to move, but I couldn't obey. I just _couldn't _take another Autumn in that god-awful country with _him_ there. If _he _wasn't there then maybe… but the only reason we ever went was for _him._

My mother's voice called out, her tone more commanding than Sango's. "Kagome. Don't dawdle."

Instinctively my feet tried to obey her voice, but my heart and mind screamed against it. I couldn't go… I just had to find some way out of this. I had to convince my mother that it was impossible for me to come along this year. I couldn't take it. I just couldn't take the strain of being with someone I hated for a whole season. It was asking too much.

"Kagome!" My mother called again, sharply.

The soldiers, sailors and servants all stood around, hovering, waiting for me to board so they could pack up the luggage and send the boat off. No one was going anywhere if I didn't move.

"Mother…" I called quietly. "I don't want to come this year. I'll be staying here." I tried to use the same tactics she used when she wanted something. She didn't ask for things, she just stated. If my mother ever wanted to stay home, she would say so and no one would or could argue with her demands.

My mother had to be this way. If she were anything less then she would be a carpet to other people. As it was she was current ruler of this country and the only female leader there was in all the lands. She commanded people as well as any man, ever since my father had passed away.

But I was not my mother, and I could not be an authority figure like her. My voice was weak and unconvincing. She dismissed my wishes. "You're getting on this boat, Kagome. If you don't then you will be left here in the port, homeless and without a friend."

"I'd have Sango." I challenged. But one look at Sango told me that she would be very unwilling to stay… she _really _wanted to go to Toshiyama with everyone else.

"And would Sango feed you, clothe you and defend you from ruffians that are roaming the street?" My mother challenged.

Sango did these things already.

"Would she be able to give you suitable shelter and money for an entire season?" She tilted her head slightly. "Think carefully, Kagome, and don't be a naïve fool, because you are anything but."

A strange kind of insulting compliment… but I knew that she was right. Wherever the household went, I had to follow. I may be a Princess of sorts but no one was going to follow my orders or let me have my freedom of choice.

I hated Autumn…

I resigned myself at last and stepped lightly across the bridge onto the boat. Fortunately my mother wasn't the type of person to smile smugly when she got her own way, she just nodded her thanks to me that I'd obeyed and went off towards the helm to talk to the captain about the weather for the journey.

I walked straight to the back of the ship and leaned on the wooden railing, looking down at the dark waters below.

"Don't jump Kagome, it's only for three months!" Sango called as she'd passed by.

I hadn't been considering jumping… but after that little reminder I seriously thought about it.

_~Inuyasha~_

"They'll be here by nightfall."

I groaned even louder than before and pressed my face harder into my hands. Every bleeding year… every blasted Autumn…

I was seriously going to go insane if I had to put up with that girl again. At the beginning of every Autumn I would be dragged out of whatever cupboard I was trying to hide in and marched to the coast where we would await the arrival of _her _boat. It always seemed to be the coldest, most miserable day of the year so far… almost as if the climate turned frosty in response to my mood.

Fortunately this year was going to be slightly different. Instead of meeting them as they landed on the docks, we'd be meeting them at the castle gates… well, at least I wouldn't have to get up as early to trek out through the fog.

"Inuyasha? Are you listening to me?" Miroku was nudging me in the ribs with his foot. "Are you even awake? I know you're alive, I heard you groan."

"G'way…" I resisted the urge to scratch his pesky foot with my claws. I'm sure he'd really appreciate that.

I heard him sigh somewhere above me. "You have to get up at some point today, not only do you have to get washed and dressed for you know who's arrival, but Kikyo wants you to help her with something."

"With something like what?" I was going to stay in bed for as long as possible.

"Why don't you get up and ask her?"

I decided to ignore him at that point. Maybe he'd give up and go away… but then again, Miroku wasn't a quitter, and he didn't like being ignored. His foot swung unnecessarily hard into my side and I found myself pushed straight off the futon onto the floor. I scrambled to my feet. "I'll kill you, monk!"

He remained unfazed, and simply turned and headed out the screen door. "Go see Kikyo, after all she's the only one patient enough to listen to your griping about the Princess." He paused as he reached the door. "And we all know why that is, don't we?"

Of course… everyone in the castle knew that Kikyo disliked the Princess… almost as much as I did. I think the Princess was too blind to notice that she was hated, after all she was always simperingly nice and friendly to Kikyo whenever they met.

I remember… in the second year of this stupid arrangement I'd been nine years old, and fed-up completely with the foreign Princess. She was childish and annoying and her two-faced motives had been pushing me too far. The emotional distress for me had been just too much! I had found it too unfair and hard to share my life with someone I hated for three months, my patience was short in those days. So… like any other short-changed child I cried. Fortunately the Princess had never witnessed any of those embarrassing moments, but the first time I'd cried my mother had been the one to comfort me, doing what mothers did best and just holding me until I stopped screaming.

The second time I'd cried my mother had left this life and the only one around to offer comfort had been Kikyo. She'd been eleven at the time, but she'd done exactly the same thing as my mother had done and pulled my head to her chest and let me cry. Like I'd said, she'd only been eleven while I was nine and her chest was practically as flat as mine and in no way as comfy as my mother's. But that had been the day when she'd confided in me of her distaste of the Princess as well… and it had surprised me by the venom in her tone. From that moment on she'd been my ally in the war against the foreign Princess…

I haven't cried since… Other than that time when I trapped my finger in the door last year, but I won't go into that.

This would be the tenth year of the agreement. The tenth Autumn and the tenth visit. I could barely remember what the Princess looked like… I hadn't seen her for almost a year, but I remember the known facts; that she was evil, stupid, and pathetically weak and unfit to call herself a real Hime. And her mother was twice as bad. They were both pushy and snobbish, and everyone knew that they'd plotted together to bump off their father so that the Princess' mother could take over their country.

My father strolled past my bedroom open door. "Get up." He said breezily before disappearing as fast as he'd appeared.

I glared after him and scratched my head, not caring that I ruffled my hair up even more than it had been already. Well… since it was well past noon and moving into the hour of the Horse, I decided that it was probably best to get up or else suffer someone else's wrath.

I really wasn't looking forward to tonight…

_~Kagome~_

I really wasn't looking forward to tonight. And I really wasn't feeling too well at the moment.

I was currently hanging over the side of the ship, throwing up at ten minute intervals until I had nothing left in my stomach. This was part of the reason why I hated travelling to Toshiyama. I never really did fare well on the water… especially with the boat throwing itself up and down all the time.

Sango approached me cautiously from behind as though afraid she might set me off again, but she didn't have to worry, I'd reached that point when my stomach was empty. "Feeling better?" she inquired in a not so helpful way.

"I'm just fine…" I slurred as I sank against the rail again and closed my eyes, trying to pretend that I was anywhere else but on that boat. But my imagination has always been bad and I can't seem to picture my surroundings as anything other than a fishy deck of a creaky wooden ship with the sea slapping and rumbling around us. I screwed my eyes shut tighter and concentrated on that lovely meadow back home.

"So what's in Toshiyama?" Sango asked as she sat on the floor beside me.

"What do you mean?"

"What's the scenery like? I hear it's very beautiful."

"It is… if you like that kind of thing." I remembered the landscape in Toshiyama. It was very hilly compared to home. There were hardly any little towns and villages which made it seem lonely, barren and cold… but it was a very extensive country, far bigger than my mother's and its military power was superior to any other I knew of. The statistics of the country was its beauty, the land was nothing much to look at… only bumps here and there coated in a carpet of woodland trees. "It's very quiet there I suppose…" I conceded eventually. "Nice place to find some time to yourself."

"And Toshiyama Castle."

I shivered at the name. I couldn't stand that place. It was like some oppressive kind of prison. "It sits on top of one of the tallest hills in the country. It has a grey stone wall surrounding its peak that is fifteen metres high and supposedly impenetrable. It's clouded in fog for most of the Autumn and Winter… and when you look up at it from the valley below it looks like a ghost castle."

"That's a very negative description." Sango told me. "I was told it was a lovely place."

It really wasn't, but maybe that was just my biased opinion. I found the owners of the castle obnoxious, so naturally I found the castle obnoxious too. "I guess it's alright… but there's this well that sits right bang in the middle of the castle, right in the centre of the hill's peak. A dry well…"

"What about it?" Sango looked at me.

A quelled a surge of nausea that threatened to overwhelm me for a moment. I got my breath back. "When I was six I was looking down it when the Lord's son came along and told me that half a century ago an old man threw a dead dragon down the well… and the dust and water vapour that rose up from the well at that time was what made the mist that surrounds the castle. As if that wasn't enough to freak me out he told me that the dragon still festered down at the bottom and came out at Autumn time to gobble up any gullible humans that happened to be around, and bringing up a mass of mist and fog with it."

"That wasn't very nice of him." Sango scowled.

"He's not a very nice person." I agreed hastily. "I couldn't sleep for the next week in fear that if I fell asleep the dragon would eat me. I can't go near that well now… But that's why Toshiyama Castle is also nicknamed the Castle of the Dragon."

"So what are the people like there?" Sango pressed, eager to know the details.

I took a deep breath to steady myself. "The only people I see in Toshiyama are workers in the castle. It's big enough to house a small village in that castle… they all live in the small buildings in the courtyard. They're all human, but the Lord and his two sons aren't. The prince is half human though…"

"I know. His mother, Lady Henna, she died a few years ago didn't she?"

I nodded sadly. "She was the only nice person in that place…"

"What about Lord Inu? He's nice, right?"

"My mother likes him fine." I opened my eyes to glare off towards the horizon. Here at the back of the boat I could see the receding land line of my own country… I felt incredibly homesick already. "Of course she likes him… they're close-knit allies aren't they? I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine, type of thing. The only reason we go to Toshiyama every Autumn is because they hope that one day I might marry the Prince and unify our two countries so that we can never break our ally bonds with each other! It's so annoying! Why doesn't mother just marry Lord Inu and save me all this grief!"

"Because your mother bears no love for Lord Inu." Said a voice behind us that made me jump guiltily. "And Lord Inu bears no love for me either."

Like the lack of love had ever stopped her from marrying anyone before? I wanted to point that out, but my common sense made me hold my tongue.

"We're nearly at the port, try and collect yourself before we arrive there, Kagome." And with that she walked off again.

I gave into temptation and made a rude sign at her back… something I'd picked up from the servant boys at home. Sango gasped and slapped my hand down quickly. "She'll skin you if she sees that!"

"I don't care." I said rebelliously. "All she ever does is criticise me and… well… that's about it, but she doesn't have to be so rude to me all the time. _And _she drags me to hell every Autumn to get her jollies."

Sango patted my arm compassionately. "Don't worry, you've got me this year." She smiled.

I couldn't help but smile with her. At least this year I wouldn't feel so alone perhaps… I was usually the only girl hanging around the castle, a total stranger, and the prince did nothing to make me feel as if I were at home. My nerves were strung right from the beginning of the visit to the very end… I was usually exhausted by the time I got back home…

It surprised me when we got off the boat. I expected to be greeted by the usual entourage of the welcoming committee. The port was pretty much empty… apart from the carriage that had been sent to retrieve us. It was only big enough for me and my mother… but I managed to squeeze Sango in next to me. Everyone else would have to walk.

The way from the port to Toshiyama castle was one I knew by heart now. We wound our way down the narrow roads between the hills and trees. After passing about five hills in a Northerly direction I felt the carriage start moving uphill. I looked out the window and suppressed my grimace, knowing that my mother was undoubtedly watching my face.

There it was. Toshiyama Castle in all its 'glory'.

The mist still coiled around it, distorting a clear view of it. I'd never seen the castle completely, not when the only times I came here was when it was dwelling in white clouds. It brought back the memory of the old dry well. According to legend, the dragon that lived in it was up and about since the mist had risen. I shivered unconsciously.

"Kagome, you look very grim. What are you worried about?" My mother asked.

"Every Autumn, mother…" I sighed. "You know I hate it here. You know I hate _him _and that there is no chance of marrying _him _so why do I have to see **_him_**_?"_

She smiled lightly and turned to look out the window. "Things have changed over the summer. Things are going to be different this year."

"Oh yes. And why would this year be different from any other year?" I couldn't keep my angry heat out of my voice.

"How old are you, Kagome?" she asked mildly.

I thought for a moment. "Sixteen summers."

"Inuyasha was seventeen last winter."

I gave a small shake of my head. "What difference does that make? All that means is that he's regressed another mental year back."

She gave one of her rare smiles and laughed. I didn't often see such a display on my mother, so it took me by surprise for a moment. "The difference is that you were a child the last time you came here. Now you two are adults at last."

That struck a note of fear in me that I tried to hide. Adulthood meant that I was finally at that age when I should marry… and my only suitor was _that guy_! Was this the final year? Was this the last of my freedom. Would I be forced to marry this Autumn and live here in Toshiyama for the rest of my natural life? Would I never see my own home again?

"Kagome, you look pale." Sango whispered.

I turned my eyes away from my mother and out the window as the carriage drew to a stop. This was the end of the line. From here it was a small trek up a long set of steep stone stairs that let to the Castle gates. I hated this part as much as the boat journey… only because the stairs were wet and slippery and one look down was enough to make me feel scared and dizzy.

I owed a lot of my fear of heights, wells and lizards to this place.

Picking up the skirts of my kimono I followed after my mother up the stone stairway and kept my eyes firmly fixed on her back. I refused to look down. Looking down would only increase the chances of me falling – not something I wanted to do. For a start it would be embarrassing and the lord's son would be laughing at me all Autumn. Oh, and I'd probably be dead.

Actually… maybe I should look down? It might give me an excuse to go home.

Sango could barely contain her excitement as we reached the castle gates. She was gaping at the height of the perimeter walls and when we were allowed through into the inner compound she was further gaping around at all the space. While the walls were stone, the buildings were made of wood and trimmed in gold.

"It's pretty." She confided in me as we were walked across the courtyard towards the largest building – the inner castle itself.

"It's pretty oppressive," I shot back, looking around warily. A few people had stopped work to look across at us. Some of them I recognised from the previous year, some I didn't. Our own servants spread out in the courtyard… entering the inner castle was for military, private servants and nobles only. It was a tall building… I had no idea what the top looked like because the roof was blotted out with fog.

We went inside and were led straight down the wide corridor to the room at the back. It was decent sized… and it was the room where I'd first met Lord Inu and his two sons. I remember that day as if it were only a few years ago… not ten.

I'd only been six at the time and had no idea what I was doing in Toshiyama. I thought it was going to a wonderful little holiday to getaway from the boring old home. My father had died the year before, and since then my mother had been doing a lot of travelling and work. I'd thought it was nice to travel with her for once.

How wrong I was.

The first time I saw Lord Inu was in the large wooden chair in the back room. His appearance hadn't scared me, but I remembered being very curious about it. It wasn't often that I saw demons, and I'd never seen a powerful one before. I remembered thinking that if his ears were rounded and his eyes just a little bit more brown, he could have passed for any other human with snowy white hair down his back to his waist.

The greeting between him and my mother had been formal, but friendly. I'd knelt down beside my mother on the open mats before the chair and had risen when he requested to see my face.

"She looks like you, Jun." He had said to my mother. "You must be very proud."

"I am." That had been one of my mother's only admissions of pride in me.

Then _he _had been brought forward. He had done the most curt bow I'd ever seen and had glared at me the entire time like I was infringing on his personal property. A few minutes later when we'd been left together by our parents, I'd made the mistake in commenting on his shortness (at that time he'd been a year older and an inch shorter than me). He'd then made the mistake on commenting on the colour of my eyes.

Within five minutes of meeting each other I punched him. It had been the start of a very ugly relationship…

The back room hadn't changed in the slightest since that first year I was there. Looking around I saw the chair was still in the same place, the table with the map of all the countries in the land printed on it was still against the wall, even the guards were standing in the same way… perhaps they were the same guards as well? The only things that had been changed was the flooring… it must have been warn down over the years.

Lord Inu wasn't sitting in his chair when we arrived in the room. He was standing at the table and turned the minute we entered. He had smiled at once and greeted us a lot less formally than he should have really.

"Lady Jun, it's a pleasure to see your face again. It's been too long."

"I agree." My mother was smiling again. She probably had missed her old friend.

"And Lady Kagome." He turned to me, beaming even wider. "You've matured a lot over the past year. You are truly a stunning young woman now."

I tried not to blush too hard. "You're too kind." He really was.

Over the years I'd witnessed a change in this man. He'd seemed stoic and all leader-like when I'd first met him, but he'd softened with each passing Summer, even when his wife had died he remained to let things slide and get informal. My mother said it was typical of all men, no matter what species. Age turned men weak and women strong… or that was her theory anyway. 

I still liked Lord Inu more than I had. He reminded me of a cushy old Grandfather back home.

"Where's Inuyasha?" My mother inquired almost at once. She wasted no time at all…

"Oh he's coming." Lord Inu chortled happily. I ground my teeth together… this was all a ruse to make us fall in love and marry. It was so blindingly obvious, though no one had officially stated that was the purpose to these visits. I would never love or even like Inuyasha. That was the end of the matter.

He entered the room from behind us, obviously having run and was out of breath. He stopped beside us, facing his father and looked at me the same time I looked at him.

My knees went weak and my mouth grew dry. My heart started beating to a new tempo, fluttering helplessly in my chest as my breathing grew shallow. It was hard to stand so straight with the room swaying as much as it was… before I realised that it was actually me who was swaying. Sango rushed up to steady me. "What's the matter?" she asked with concern.

He was staring at me insolently, waiting for an explanation. My fluttering heart turned icy and I nearly felt my lip curl. I found myself slipping into the attitude I'd bore for him last Autumn too. "You're stench is even more overpowering this year, Inuyasha." I managed weakly. "You nearly had me faint."

"Oh what a joy this year is going to be." He grumbled and turned away from me. I waved Sango off me and looked to my mother and Lord Inu… I could see them mentally snapping their fingers in exasperation and saying '_Oh_, so close!'.

That _had _been close. If he hadn't given me his usual arrogantly superior look I may have done something to embarrass myself. But that sudden feeling when I'd seen him… it had taken my by complete surprise and it left me shaken. _What was that…?_

With a droll half-sigh half-gasp Inuyasha made his presence known. "Can I go now?"

His father gave him a very disparaging look that would have withered a weak heart on the spot. Inuyasha remained unaffected. "What is it that is so important that you must miss greeting our Autumn guests?" he asked.

"Kikyo needs my help."

Kikyo… Kikyo… oh yeah, I remembered her. Resident miko and herbalist extraordinaire. I always had the impression that the miko didn't particularly care for me. I had no idea what I had done to offend her… I remembered trying to be friends with her when I'd first come here. She had been under the apprenticeship of an older miko at the time and her heart had seemed in the right place… she liked caring for people and helping old and young alike. But for some reason she'd never warmed to me. I left her alone after that.

"Kikyo?" Lord Inu echoed. "You may go… but could you please inform her that Lady Jun requires some ointment for the cold she's coming down with."

That man was amazing. My mother wasn't even sniffling yet, but he still knew when people were ill. Mother just smiled and nodded. "You're fast, Inu."

I saw Inuyasha roll his eyes at my mother. Even though I rolled my eyes all the time at her, I still felt angered that he had the nerve to do that. I glared at him sideways, glaring, but still taking in the little changes that had taken place over the last year. He seemed taller, broader in the shoulders, his jaw a little stronger… and he seemed to have filled out subtly with muscle. I swallowed hard as I realised I was glaring anymore, I was just staring in awe. Quickly I turned my face down and tried to fight the heat that rose in my cheeks. Fortunately no one noticed.

"You may go see her." Lord Inu told Inuyasha wearily and I felt him leave our side and exit the back room.

It was almost as if some heavy weight had been lifted off my shoulders when he'd gone. I found myself wondering… _what was that?_ I strongly believed that in my absence from this place Inuyasha may have learnt some form of witchcraft to make my knees so wobbly at the sight of him.

I pursed her lips as I pondered that line of thought…

"Jun, you must accompany me to the gardens," Lord Inu said suddenly. "Have you ever seen a flower garden bloom in the Autumn?"

"I haven't, that's unusual." She said as she followed him. I trailed after them. "It must be a good omen."

Or a bad one. A very bad one.

_~Inuyasha~_

"Different? How so?" Kikyo asked as she bent double, tending to the herbs in the small lot behind the servants quarters.

"I dunno…" I replied, picking at the wicker of the basket I was holding for her. "She just seems different this year… different from before."

"Is she pretty?" Kikyo asked bluntly.

A grimace pulled at half of my face. "What kind of a question is that?"

"A simple one." She straightened and put a few herb clippings in my basket. "Is she growing in beauty or not?"

Not something I wanted to think about… but… "Yeah. She's got a nice face I suppose." Kikyo remained quiet after I said that, and went on picking at the small plants as conversation lagged. A new thought occurred to me. "She kinda looks like you."

"I'm insulted." She said evenly. Was she really? Her tone never actually changed to indicate her mood…

"No, that's a compliment." I followed her as she moved to another row of herbs on the lot. "If she's pretty, it means you're pretty too."

I heard her sigh and continue. Women were hard to understand… hard to please. "What do you want me to say? You want me to lie and say she's ugly and plain? 'Cause that would only be insulting you."

She straightened again and headed for another lot. I followed close behind her. "Inuyasha, please do not think that my level of attractiveness runs parallel to that child's looks. The question now is what will you do? Will you marry her?"

Another strange question. Kikyo was full of them. "Of course not! I hate her!"

She made an indifferent kind of shrug as she surveyed the plants below her. "When it comes down to it, it will not be your choice whether or not you will marry her. It is your father's choice and Lady Jun's wishes that determine who and when you will marry."

Thanks for reminding me…

"But I suppose… if you were determined enough… you could always kill her and save yourself the trouble of having to live with her."

My chin jerked up to look directly into her eyes. She looked deadly serious… "Kikyo…"

Suddenly a tiny smile tilted one corner of her lips. Almost a smirk. "Don't look so horrified. I wasn't being serious." She went back to searching through the leaves of the herbs again, but her joke had sobered me a little. Sometimes Kikyo's dislike of the Princess seemed intense… "What I really meant was that you really don't have to be forced into anything… if you really don't want to marry her, you might not have to."

I gave a curt nod. "Damn right. No way am I marrying that stuck-up, annoying bubble head!"

Kikyo looked at me strangely. "But then again, would you really be willing to fight your parents for that?"

Yet another question which had me wondering what she was _really _asking. "What do you mean?"

"Feelings change over time." She took the basket from under my arm and placed a few leaves in it. "Perhaps this year you'll find that you won't be so adverse to marrying Lady Kagome."

"I doubt it." I snorted. "I've never wanted to marry her and I never will!"

Kikyo turned away. "We'll see." As she walked off she called over her shoulder. "Lady Jun's medicine will be ready by morning. I'll give it to one of the servants to give to her."

"Thanks." Something about Kikyo always brought out the almost non-existent polite side in me. And as she walked in response she half turned and gave me a 'you're welcome' kind of nod of the head. She disappeared into her one room house amongst the other servant's huts.

I exhaled deeply and headed back toward the main building. Kikyo had always been a puzzle to me… I doubted I'd be figuring her out any time soon. She always seemed to say one thing and mean another. She never said what she really meant… sometimes I missed the quality in her that would make her more literal for once.

I stopped by my room, feeling tired even though I'd only been awake for a small portion of the day, but it was growing increasingly dim outside and some of the servants and the younger children were going to bed. In my room I discovered something that made me want to kick myself. Miroku. Well, not only him but three more beds than there should have been.

"Oh yeah… I forgot about this." I sighed as I moved over to the window to join him. He was looking out over the compound below. "I have to share a room with that twit and two chaperones."

"Mm." Miroku's eyes were firmly fixed on something outside.

"I mean, what's the point in getting us to sleep together if they put chaperones in with us anyway? What exactly does that accomplish?!" I ground out and glared at the four beds. "Let me guess that you're chaperone number one this year?"

"Mm."

"'Mm'?" I copied. "'Mm' is all you can say now? You're usually full of wise and wonderful words, monk. What are you looking at?"

"Mm? Oh!" he pointed with his gloved hand. "Is that Lady Kagome?"

I narrowed my eyes and followed his gaze. Yep. There she was; the brainless wonder. She was standing with a girl I didn't recognise… probably her handmaid. They were both talking to a couple of servants with three children. The Princess was letting herself slip again… talking animatedly to the servants and their children, making the group laugh at the things she said. Princesses weren't supposed to tell jokes. They were supposed to stand like planks of wood with expressions of stone and look pretty and marry men so they could hand their wealth over to them. This princess seemed determined to break the mould. Like mother like daughter.

"She certainly has turned out quite lovely this year, hasn't she?" Miroku commented. My gaze slid slowly to him.

"What?" I barked.

"I mean… I never really noticed before, but she really is quite lovely." Miroku gave me a disbelieving look. "Don't tell me you hadn't noticed."

He wasn't Kikyo so I didn't feel I had to be honest. "No, I didn't notice – because there's nothing _to _notice!"

"Denial." Miroku said bluntly. "But look at the way her hair shines… how graceful her arms move and how sleek her skin is. Smooth curves in just the right places… an exquisite swan like neck, delicate hands…"

"Nice neck and hands. Got it." I glowered off at the darkening horizon. "Well it's better than last year. You kept going on about her breasts and ass."

"Which look splendid from where I'm sitting." He smiled to himself. "That kimono does wonders for her figure."

My hand moved of its own accord, about to hit him upside the head. It was a pity that Miroku was faster these days and read my moves before even I realised I was making them. His staff blocked my fist, jamming between my fingers painfully. I glared at him while he looked calmly back up at me. "You did that last year as well."

"Did what?"

"Reacted rather protectively when I commented on the shape of Lady Kagome's behind."

I nearly hit him again. "Don't think of her that way! She's barely even considered female – don't go making a fool of yourself by panting after her like you do everything else that moves on two legs!"

"How about her friend then?" he asked me.

I threw up my hands in disgust and went back into the room to lie on my bed. With a sigh I pillowed my head on hands and gazed up at the ceiling.

Before I knew it I was asleep. At first I was having a stupid dream… I was chasing a duck which had stolen my shoes… which somehow changed into a cat at some point then ran up a tree to where I couldn't reach it and danced arrogantly in my footwear. But strangely the dream changed to a dream about the Princess herself…

I was standing at the edge of a vast lake. Inky black and rippling ever so slightly here and there despite there being no breeze. The water seemed too thick to be real water… or real ink for that matter. The Princess was stood in the very centre of this lake, like she was standing on the surface of the water itself… she looked very sad. She looked up and saw me, smiled and waved… an odd reaction to get from her. I didn't wave back, so her face fell again and she looked down. When I followed her gaze that's when I noticed that something odd was happening. The pristine white kimono that she was wearing touched the water she stood on… and it was soaking up the water little by little. A red stain horribly like blood was creeping up her kimono, turning a deeper shade of crimson.

That dream ended quickly, only to move onto something else. I was in paradise. All the food I could possibly want surrounded me everywhere I looked… and well, that was about it. My father was stood in front of me, watching me eat. "Don't you have more important things to do than eat?" he asked me.

I shook my head and carried on eating.

"Don't you have somewhere you want to go?" he asked again. "Somewhere you want to end up?"

I shook my head again. "I'm happy here."

"You can't live in gluttony for long, son. Things change. People change."

I stopped chewing. "But I'm happy right here." I said more slowly, hoping he would understand.

"Your life is scaled small now. It'll grow. Your importance will grow. You have a destiny… you must meet it."

"My destiny?" I didn't like the idea of having a destiny, but I was intrigued. "What's my destiny then?"

He opened his mouth to reply. That's when someone stood on my chest and I felt like I had just died.

I snapped awake in an instant and jolted up into a sitting position. Looking up I saw Kagome moving towards her bed… considering the way she was walking, it looked like she'd just stepped over me to get to her futon, or more like stepped _on _me. "Hey!" I croaked indignantly in my sleepy voice.

"Sorry." She said rather insincerely as she knelt down to ready her futon. Beside her bed the other girl who I presumed was her handmaid and chaperone number two was already settling down in her bed. On my other side Miroku looked like he was sleeping peacefully. I seriously doubted it.

"Goodnight Sango," The Princess said to her friend and blew out her candle.

Ten seconds of shuffling and everything was quiet again. I sat dumbly for a moment, trying to retrieve some of the memory of my dream, but the harder I tried to think, the further it slipped from my mind. I quickly gave up and sighed irritably as I flopped back down onto my bed, still fully clothed.

It was going to be a long season…

AN: Done with chapter one: Back soon ^_^


	2. Lady Jun

****

Author's Notes: I have had to resort to using anti-shadow eye cream now due to the little baggies under my eyes from lack of sleep… It's getting close to midnight right now and whilst I post this chapter I _should _be doing research for Psychology… bah, never mind ^_^

****

Autumn Bane

Chapter 2

Lady Jun

__

~Kagome~

At least once a week, every Autumn at Toshiyama, there would be something I liked to call 'the little arrangements from hell'. Not a very cheery title, but a heart-felt one. These little arrangements usually involved me sitting alone in a room with Inuyasha for an hour or so. Usually the get-togethers involved eating breakfast together, drinking tea, or playing a board game of some sort.

Naturally, the first time we'd been shoved into a room together and told to eat breakfast, we had thrown a fit. Within thirty seconds we were hurling food at one another and pulling each others hair, I remember distinctly that at some point I often liked to smear sticky stuff on Inuyasha's ears. It was only until our parents found us were we finally separated… and then quite wisely kept apart for at least a whole week before another arrangement was attempted.

The first time we'd played a board game together it had dissolved into a fight, though this time we battered each other with counters and boards instead of bowls and rice.

It really should have given our parents a clue that we just weren't a suitable match… but they were persistent and eventually we stopped physically starting fights when we sat down for the 'arrangements from hell'. We discovered that the less we fought, the more our parents seemed to believe we were getting accustomed to one another and didn't need forcing together so much.

I suppose in a way… we were getting accustomed to each other?

The third day of our tenth visit marked the first Arrangement of the season. I was haplessly strolling through the halls of the inner castle when my mother came across me. Without breaking a smile or a morning greeting she halted me to speak. "Inuyasha's waiting for you in the breakfast room. Go to him."

The way she said it almost made it sound like Inuyasha was diligently waiting for me because he wanted my company… while in truth he was probably short of being chained to the floor and threatened to wait up for me on pain of death. I sighed inwardly and lost my dwindling appetite. Eating with Inuyasha wasn't my idea of fun.

There were several rooms for eating in within the castle. The large room on the second floor was for servants and soldiers to eat in, whilst smaller rooms on the third floor separated by screens were private dining areas for slightly more important people. I guess since me and Inuyasha were both children of a Daimyo, we were classed as important enough to warrant separate breakfast arrangements.

I found Inuyasha on the third floor. The moment I pushed the screen back I found myself locking gazes with him… both of us glared instantly. Old habits die hard I suppose… we just weren't going to ever get _that _used to each other.

The best way to go about this was to just shut up and eat. Exchange no greeting or any other kind of verbal or physical contact and hopefully it wouldn't lead to any other kind of contact such as hands around throats.

I sat down at our table and folded my legs beneath me, keeping my eyes glued to my breakfast – a simple meal of a portion of rice and vegetables. My mouth moved before I could stop it. "Food seems a little basic this year."

He narrowed his eyes as he watched me dip my chopsticks into the bowl and bring a slice of parsnip to my lips. "Basic huh?" he commented. "You are what you eat."

Well done, Kagome! I congratulated myself as I chewed the vegetable sullenly. I admit I had probably provoked that response from him. And usually I was so good at keeping my mouth shut… With a mental shake I tried to put myself together, I could get through this one meal without starting a fist fight like last time, couldn't I?

"You seem different." Inuyasha said suddenly. 

My chin shot up and I stared at him. "Excuse me?"

"Have you done something with his hair." He cocked his head as he chewed, looking at my hair curiously.

That ridiculous fluttery feeling in my chest started again. I wondered if I was ill… "Why… actually I have, yes. I was getting tired of keeping after hair that was so long… so I trimmed it a little." More like a lot. It had been down to my hips last time… now it only gently brushed my shoulders. It was no way as straight and perfect as other girls… but I'd never been able to manage my hair as well as some people… such as Kikyo.

"Looks very masculine on you." He nodded after a moment. "Suits you."

My hand clenched unintentionally around my chop sticks and I heard one of them splinter slightly as I took a sharp intake of air. "What did you say?" I ground out in a low voice.

He smirked slightly and leaned forward. "I said you look like a man, Princess."

I sat so still and silently that he assumed I was too shocked to make anything of it right then. He grabbed his cup of water and brought it to his lips to drink from, as if passing the time for me to react.

I reacted alright. Faster than he or I could follow, my hand snapped out and smacked his cup flying over his shoulder, spilling the water down his front and mostly onto his lap. A nice big stain spread out across his clothes… like perhaps the little Prince had had an accident?

"Oh dear…" I contrived to look sorry and shocked at my actions, drawing my offending hand back to touch my lips. "Did I do that?"

His hand slammed down so hard on the table that the contents jumped and rattled. I didn't even bat an eyelid. This annoyed him apparently. "You can drop the maidenly act, Princess! I know you are anything but sweet an innocent!"

He saw through my make-up and kimono better than my own mother did. I folded my arms and flipped my hair back over my shoulder. "I don't know what you're talking about. I am Kagome-Hime of the Northern domain of Mitsu – daughter of Lady Jun and Lord Ochu who-"

"You know, I learnt something very interesting over the summer." He interrupted. I fell silent, annoyed that I'd been cut off.

"Oh?" I said testily.

"Lord Ochu isn't your real father."

My blood ran cold. How did he know that?"

"Your mother isn't a lady either. She's a former prostitute who worked for the locals of a small village." A nasty smile curved his recently rather perfect lips. "You're a simple bastard child. You have no real claim to your 'father's' inheritance."

Fortunately I didn't lose my head. I pulled a perplexed expression and shook my head like I didn't understand. "What? Did you hit your head this morning? Maybe I stepped on your chest too hard and you haven't had enough oxygen to the brain or something. You're not making any sense."

He looked around as if checking for eavesdroppers… apparently he didn't find any since he quickly leaned forward in a conspiratorially way. "It's a rumour that's been circulating for a while now. Everyone says that Lord Ochu picked up Jun from a village he passed through, who wouldn't? You're mom's not that bad looking."

I wanted to hit him so hard…

"And six months later you were born. Hmmm…" he pretended to stroke his chin as though in thought. "Sounds fishy."

"Just a vicious rumour." I tried to quash it with a flat denial, but it had upset me and I could tell he could see it on my face. 

"What, like the rumour that says you and your mother plotted together to kill him off so you could take over the country?" he challenges.

"My mother plotted his death – I had nothing to do it." I told him quickly. He looked surprised for a moment. "What? You think I'd deny something like that? So my mother killed my father – like no one's ever thought of that before."

"B-but you-"

I interrupted him to give him a taste of his own medicine. "And ok, I admit, that the probability of Lord Ochu being my real father is very close to zero, that still doesn't exclude me from the family. He married my mother and formally adopted me as his own in name and honour. Even if we are not related, I am still his daughter." I looked him square in the eye. "And just because my mother was a former prostitute does not mean that she's any lower than he was. In my opinion, my mother is the best human being I know. She cares about people, whether she likes to admit it or not. And when my father started taking out his drunk rages on me and the servants, she didn't hesitate to slip some belladonna in his drink. And perhaps, thanks to her former profession she has a better command over men than me or you or any other ruler in the damned continent."

I paused to take a sip of my water. Inuyasha had sulkily folded his arms. I doubted that the truth about my family shocked or disgusted him… but I think he was rather upset that he couldn't quite use it against me. I wasn't illegitimate since I had been adopted by a lord, no matter what my heritage, I was still a Princess. And it wasn't a crime to kill a lord either. People did it a lot these days.

"Anything else you want to say about my mother?" I inquired. "Because I may be forced to hit you repeatedly if you do."

He seemed to think for a moment, before making a sound in his throat like a scoff as he rolled his eyes and got to his feet. "Jeez, some people just suck up all the luck in life don't they?" he sounded resentful. "You were just delivered a noble title at your feet weren't you?"

I'd been delivered the silver spoon… he'd been born with it in his mouth already. What a hypocrite. "You should have told me I had all the luck when my 'father' was strategically knocking out my teeth."

He pulled a face like he was bored with the conversation and walked out. But I knew that whenever he made a speedy exit like that, it was only because he felt he was losing the battle. It gave me a few moments to dwell in my triumph smugly… before my brow crinkled into a frown and I stared off into space.

I'd always wondered… if Lord Ochu wasn't my father, then who was? The obvious answer was; a local villager in the town my mother originated from. But that wasn't very helpful… I would have liked to have known what kind of person he was. Anyone would have been better than Lord Ochu…

~Inuyasha~

It was so annoying how practically nothing could get her down. She wasn't a typical Princess… if she was, then I would probably just ignore her, marry her, then ignore her some more. But she stuck out and irritated me to no end. She threw all my barbs back in my face and never backed down from a fight.

In a way I suppose that every time she fought back, it encouraged me to push her that little bit more, in search of something that would break her limit, make her crack and have a mental break down or start weeping like a child. I'd love to see that girl finally slump and admit defeat…

Though I also knew that if I did find her breaking point I would probably back off quite sharpish. Even I wouldn't be as cruel as to kick a girl when she's down. Unlike her. She'd probably happily kick me when I was down – in all sorts of places. 

So I'd pretty much lost round one this year – but there were several hundred more rounds to go and I was sure that I could probably even the score by tomorrow if I put my mind to it. Perhaps I could start by putting a few lizards in her bed… yeah, that had freaked her out pretty well last time.

I was half way to the bedroom when Miroku intercepted me. It was actually quite scary really how he appeared out of nowhere, blocking my path. "Hi." He greeted. I stopped dead, staring at him. I tried to move around him but he side-stepped and blocked me again. I'm not that slow… he was up to something. "What?" I demanded, wanting a straight answer.

"Nice day isn't it?" he said, looking around as though to him the walls might as well be invisible and he could see out into the world beyond. I'd already peeked out the window earlier that morning. It was _not _a nice day at all.

With a roll of my eyes I shifted and folded my arms. "Yeah, what do you want?"

"What makes you think I want anything?" he replied in a sincere manner.

"Oh… I don't know…" I sighed deeply… the tried skirting around him again. Nope, he wouldn't let me. He definitely wanted something. I narrowed my eyes at him. "Come on. Spit it out – you don't normally jump me unless you want money, booze, or women. And sometimes all three."

"Well I only want one this time." Miroku confessed.

"Which?" No way was I going to give him anything.

"You know Lady Kagome's new handmaid…?"

Oh dear… another one bit the dust. "What about her?" I played dumb, though I had a feeling I already knew what he wanted.

"She's quite pretty, don't you think?"

"If you say so." I gave a half-hearted shrug. Miroku admitting that a girl was pretty wasn't anything new. He'd been doing it a lot over the past few years. "And what do you want me to do about it?"

"You couldn't perhaps have a friendly chat with your future wife and find out-"

I burst out laughing and he stopped short, looking at me with the most ticked off expression I'd seen in a while. Somehow I managed to squash my laugh, letting it die to a smothered snigger before straightening again with a lop-sided grin. "You should tell jokes more often, Miroku. You're funny!" I clapped him on the shoulder as I passed. "The day the maid is interested in a creep like you is the day I am willing to marry the Princess!" Never going to happen.

But I had no idea that Miroku would take that comment to heart.

__

~Kagome~

"The air seems so much fresher here in the mountains!" Sango sighed happily as we walked around the outdoor compound. Well at least one of us was happy… I was still a little miserable from my confrontation with Inuyasha that morning… already I was getting tired and fed-up with our feud. Sango's enthusiasm wasn't exactly contagious. "Oh look – there's the well."

"Decrepit little thing, isn't it?" I sighed as we moved towards the middle of the courtyard towards the old wooden structure. It really was a very plain well for such a grand castle. A few crumbling stones around the base and a dinky little roof built over its head… it looked like any other you would find in a local village. Except it was empty.

"Wasn't there supposed to be a Dragon down there?" Sango asked, leaning down to peer into the depths of the well. I kept well back.

"Six Autumns ago… a little boy fell down that thing." I warned, Sango stepped back slightly.

"That's awful."

"I pushed him." I said casually and watched Sango give that exasperated look. "I wanted to see if Hanyous bounced, that's all."

"Did he bounce?" She asked.

"Not really, no." Unfortunately he survived.

"Pushing the Daimyo's son down a well isn't a very nice thing to do, Kagome." Sango lectured me.

"I know… but he kept putting fire lizards in my bed. And after his broken arm mended from the fall, he shaved my fringe off. So I think we were even by the end of the season." Even I had to wonder why our parents still thought having us marry was a good idea by the end of that particular visit. We'd both separated with some rather unusual and strange injuries.

"I suppose he didn't find any dragon down the bottom then?" Sango remarked with a smile, leaning down on the edge to peer down. "Wow… I can't even see the bottom."

"It's there." I turned my eyes away from the well and began looking around the compound. A few of the people who had been watching us now turned and went back to work. Though there was one figure who remained staring at me… rather obviously and rudely I might add.

He sat on the steps of the main building, in a rather laid back pose with one knee drawn up and an elbow resting on it. From this distance I couldn't really tell his age… other than the fact that he was pale, wore the clothes of a lord and had inky black hair that met past his shoulder blades. 

He just kept staring at me…

I was a little unnerved so I quickly turned away and started looking elsewhere in the compound, pretending I hadn't noticed him in particular. But when Sango left the well to join me as we walked towards the stables I drew her attention to him. "You see that man on the steps to the castle?"

She looked discreetly over her shoulder then back at me. "I don't see anyone."

One glance at the castle steps informed me that the man had departed. "He was staring at me… whoever he was."

"A lot of people stare at you. You're Kagome-Hime." Sango reasoned. "What did he look like?"

"He looked scary beyond all reason."

"Ah!" She jumped in recognition. "You might mean Lord Naraku."

"Lord who?"

"Lord Inu's new advisor." She told me. "I was talking to your mother about things around here this morning. Apparently Lord Naraku arrived last Winter, just after we left… he's been advisor since. Lady Jun doesn't like him."

"He's scary beyond all reason." I repeated, shuddering. "He just kept staring at me… no normal person is that rude."

"Well… Lady Jun did say that Naraku has a passing fancy for Miss Kikyo. And pardon me for saying so, but you do look considerably like a younger version of said miko…"

"I suppose…" Even I had noticed that fact. I guess that was one of the reasons Kikyo disliked me. No one liked having a double to infringe upon their uniqueness. It didn't exactly bother me though.

"Don't let him get to you. He was probably just admiring your beauty." Sango grinned at me.

"Flattery will get you everywhere, Sango."

__

~Inuyasha~

A part of me was still reeling in shock from what I'd discovered… part of me was burning with anger. I couldn't seem to balance the two emotions out… I didn't know whether to sit in a quiet place and say not a word, or whether to tear the place apart and see if that helped any. I didn't know how to deal with this… I didn't know what to do.

Some of my troubles must have shown on my face as she swept through the corridors. I didn't know where I was heading. Out, I suppose. Maybe I could go lose myself in a forest and be able to sit tranquil and tear everything to shreds simultaneously to vent my conflict without worrying about hurting anyone. I had to get out of there otherwise I might just lose it if my control ran out on me before I made it through the gate. But like I said, some of the trouble must have been showing on my face, because when I stomped past Kagome she stopped and turned to follow my progress.

"Is something wrong?" she called.

If I hadn't been so angry I would probably have noticed the concern in her voice. As it was, all I heard was her voice – the voice that had irritated, patronised and insulted me over the past ten years. That was when my control snapped.

I swung around so abruptly that she started and took a step back, but too slow. With one hard shove I threw her against the wall, not caring the moment I pushed her, but when I heard the thud and her cry of pain and surprise some of that hot anger left me in an eye blink and I hovered between fear and guilt at what I'd done. I opened my mouth, about to mutter an apology when she flashed a steely glower on me.

"What's the matter with you?!" she yelled, everyone on that particular floor stopped what they were doing and stared at us. I looked into her angry face, and my own rage doubled twice to what it had been before. How dare she talk to me that way? Especially after what I'd just seen her mother do!

"Everything was fine until you came along!" I yelled. "I was actually happy – but you've made a mess of everything! It's your fault!!"

She made a very un-princess-like snort. "That's probably the most immature thing you've spouted since-"

She stopped short when I took a threatening step towards where she was slumped against the screen wall. "I want you to shut up and leave! You and that whoring mother of yours!"

For a moment she looked like she was going through the same motions as me. She looked shocked, pale, and then suddenly she looked very livid, bringing the colour back to her cheeks in an angry blush. Not surprisingly, she was embarrassed… I'd just announced to everyone listening that her mother was one of _those _kinds of women.

"I can't believe you…" she whispered under her breath, just loud enough for me to catch. She looked disgusted in me.

I turned and literally ran before I could see anymore. I pushed past a gaggle of maids that were milling around the stairs, they didn't seem to mind too much. The only other person I passed on my way down was Miroku, he didn't make any comment on my rush, he'd already informed me in the past that the best way to deal with one of my moods was to ignore it. So I raced past him without having to worry about explanations… he'd probably ask Kagome about it… and she'd probably winge and say I had attacked her for no reason at all…

Which in a way I had.

Self-disgust made me grimace and threw myself out of the entrance of the building, nearly tripping over in my haste to pass the steps. I didn't bother to take the conventional way out of the compound, that would take too long, trying to get clearance fast enough for the guards to open the gates.

I ran past the servants quarters and rounded the allotment (didn't want to step on anything that would make Kikyo mad) and the moment I met the perimeter wall, I took off the ground on one foot, outstretching my hands to leapfrog it, out into the growing darkness.

The drop to the ground on the other side was further than I had anticipated and it was either my clumsiness or my anger that made me stumble when I landed. It was a stumble which overbalanced me in an instant and had me tumbling down the slope of our hill. I careened into several trees before I managed to right myself and slid down the moist mud and earth with two fists jammed into the hillside to steady me, ripping through turf and root with my claws on the way down.

The ground evened out slightly and I released the hill as I staggered back.

After such an unusual trip down to the valley, I was left feeling a little hollow, tired and exhausted. Looking down at myself I took in my appearance – half covered in mud and grime, my hair was almost completely coated with grey clay.

I looked up at the castle again and sighed. The mist still swarmed around it like a cloud of white locust, consuming it from the world and blocking it from view. I looked further, past it's vague, blurred outline to the sky above. It had darkened a lot by now, the grey outline of clouds drifted across the charcoal heavens… those clouds parted for a sparse moment and a tingle went down my spine.

No moon…

"Aw… hell…" 

I still had a few minutes left… the sun hadn't completely set behind the horizon, and until it did, I was still a Hanyou. Until the sun rose again in the morning, I would be vulnerable… so it made me wonder if I should probably head back to the castle before sundown.

Another thing I hated about Autumn: the nights lasted longer – hence the reason why I tend to stay human just that little bit longer than Summer nights… but Winter was much worse. The nights seemed to last forever in that cold season.

"What are you doing down here?"

I spun around on one heel, almost stumbling in my surprise. I saw my father standing a little further up the slope and my breathing began to get choppy…

__

He'd seen me…

"You look like you slid down this hill using your face." He approached me… I couldn't help my naturally reaction of darting backwards a couple of paces to keep the distance between us. He saw my movement and narrowed his eyes a moment before sighing. "I know that you know… Inuyasha."

A mixture of disgust and anger welled up inside my chest at this blatant confession. But most of all confusion. "Why… how could you do this to me?!"

He flashed hard amber eyes on me. "It's not always about you," He said gruffly. "In fact this has got nothing to do with you whatsoever."

I fair exploded. "Nothing to do with-?!"

"Pipe down and listen to me!"

"Doesn't mother mean anything to you-?!"

"She died a long time ago!"

"I still miss her!" 

My father didn't have a comeback for that one. He fell into a thoughtful silence, and I fidgeted, wanting to run, but at the same time wanted to stay and scratch his eyeballs out.

We had a dilemma. A problem in the family. The problem being that I had just caught my father hooking up with another woman who wasn't my mother… and if that wasn't disturbing enough as it was, this woman just happened to be the mother of the girl I was 'supposed' to marry. I had horrible _horrible_ visions in my head that I didn't want to think about…

"Your mother died nearly a decade ago." He told me. "I have moved on from my grief… you should too…"

"I'm over my grief." I told him honestly. It was true that thinking about my mother didn't making me sad anymore… I didn't really feel very much actually. "But at least I'd respect her memory and keep out of other women's beds for a while!"

"I'm not in anyone's bed!" he argued hotly. "I haven't even touched Jun!"

"You haven't touched her?!" I shouted. "Then what the hell were you two doing back there?!"

"It was one little kiss!"

"'Kiss' my arse!" I darted an uneasy look towards the sky again. It was growing increasingly dark now, and the light was fading fast. I had only scant minutes until the sun set and I didn't want to be here arguing with my father when I transformed.

"Inuyasha, trust me when I say that me and Jun have both honoured your mothers soul and not consumed our relationship in any way. We both feel that would harm both you and your mother."

"Damn right!" I snapped. The roots of my hair felt strange… like my scalp was crawling…

"I'm sorry."

I didn't want his pitiful apologies. "So is this the reason behind all these Autumn visits. You pretend that you're courting your children, when in fact you two are courting each other."

"No." he said sharply. "For the sake of both our domains, we wish for you to marry Lady Kagome."

"Why don't you marry Lady Jun then?!" I barked. "You'd get the same results…" I trailed off as I began to feel the changes overcome me. I shot my father a startled look, before attempting to bolt past him and run as fast as I could with dwindling powers.

He caught my arms as I passed.

"Let go!" I shouted.

"Not until you listen to me, son!" he said in that authoritative voice he thought would convince me. I struggled helplessly. My ears were sliding down the sides of my head, disappearing into my dark hair.

"Let go of me and I'll listen tomorrow!" I was leaning dangerously far over now, if he let go of me I'd fall flat on my face.

"I can't marry Lady Jun for a reason." He told me. I was only half listening because I was too desperate to get away from him. "Lady Jun is dying."

"What?!" I shouted, still struggling, still not listening.

"She probably won't last another winter at this rate."

My struggles gradually ceased as his words sunk in. If he hadn't been holding me so tightly, I would have certainly dropped to the ground. The final changes of the new moon took affect and at once his grip on my arms seemed too tight and painful, even though he hadn't inclined his fingers in the slightest. I ignored the pain since I was a little too shocked at what he'd said. "What?" I said again, this time with more feeling.

He let me straighten and turn to face him properly. He looked serious. "Lady Jun has been ill for a very long time. She knows her time is short and she does not wish to inflict her condition upon me, so marriage is out of the question. Though it is also her wish to see her only daughter marry someone respectable before she dies."

I stared up at him, not quite believing this was true. "She can't be dying… she's the same as always. How do you know she's ill?"

"I can smell it." He tapped his nose. His sense of smell would always be better than mine. I was only a Hanyou after all.

"She'll really die?" then something occurred to me. "Kagome doesn't know, does she?"

He shook his head. No. "And don't tell her, either."

That seemed a little unfair. The one closest person to Lady Jun hadn't been let in on the secret. "Why not-?"

"Because it's best that as many people as possible act as if everything's fine. It'll just get depressing for everyone if they knew her death was imminent." He told me.

I stared at him for a moment, trying to make out his expression but with the dimness of human vision and the lack of guiding light from the moon, I couldn't make out a thing. I inhaled deeply and let it out slowly… so if Lady Jun was to die soon, I would mean that I would have to marry her daughter even sooner. Two depressing thoughts for the price of one.

"Are you ok?" My father asked, sensing my unease.

"I'll live." I said sullenly.

"Don't let Jun know that you know about anything more than you did this morning. Ok?"

I nodded reluctantly. I felt a little bad actually. The princess was due to lose her only remaining parent soon and then she'd be an orphan. I at least had my father, but I knew what it was like to lose a mother. Granted, my mother was a lot warmer and gentle than Lady Jun… but a mother was a mother. I felt a pang in my chest that could have been considered sympathy by most; I called it one of those strange weaknesses brought along by 'that time of the month'.

My father squeezed my shoulder, more lightly than he would normally now that it was a human shoulder he grasped. "Come on." He urged me to follow him back up the slope. We made a strange father and son. One pristinely dressed, white haired demon; one scruffy, mud covered black haired human.

When I got to my room I walked in to find Kagome sitting upright on her futon, peering at a bruise on her shoulder. The moment she spotted me she yanked the sleeve of her night-dress back up to hide her bare skin… not that she'd revealed too much anyway. "You could knock!" she said sharply, pulling the blankets over her lap.

"Sorry." I muttered.

She blinked. "Well… I guess it is your room."

"No, I meant, sorry about giving you that bruise." I winced. "And sorry I said those things about your mother."

A blush spread across her cheeks and she suddenly seemed very flustered. I watched in mild surprise as she made a show of lying down and pulling the covers over her body. What an odd reaction…

I made to go to my own futon when I heard her say in a small voice. "You always seem nicer on the new moon… when you're human…"

"Well it's only one night a month. Don't get used to it." I said a little more sarcastically than I meant to. I heard her sigh and turn away from me. Too late to take it back now.

Once I settled down on my bed, I opened my mouth to ask her something… but at that precise moment Sango and Miroku walked in as acting chaperones. No one said a word after that.

I didn't get the chance to ask her if she preferred me as a Human or a Hanyou. I didn't know why I wanted to ask either…

AN: Right… time for more anti-shadow eye cream…


	3. The Language of Love

****

Author's Notes: Despite the sequence of events in the original tale, the romance between Inuyasha and Kagome won't be developing _that _fast. The romance build up is half the fun right? So this story is going to, roughly, be divided into two halves – the first half being the set up to the actual transformation, and the second half being about how it is resolved. (Of course if you've never seen Swan Lake or Swan Princess, you won't have a clue what I'm on about, in which case ignore me ^_^)

****

Autumn Bane

Chapter 3

The Language of Love (according to Miroku at least)

__

~Kagome~

Breakfast the next day was, fortunately for me, a public event. I didn't have to sit in private with Inuyasha and endure another verbal fight since this time I got to sit with Sango and half the other people living in the Castle.

Beside me, my mother set down her spoon as another coughing fit took her body. I glanced over at her and tentatively rubbed her back until she stopped. "You should drink some water." I told her.

She gave the faintest roll of her eyes as she reached for her cup. She'd never liked being mothered by anyone, especially by her daughter. "I'm perfectly fine, thank you." She informed me in clipped tones as she sipped her water… then succumbed to another round of coughs.

"Must be that cold Lord Inu was on about." I went back to my breakfast and didn't bother rubbing her back again, seeing as how she seemed to take it as an insult.

Across the room from us I spotted Inuyasha looking in our direction… or more specifically looking at my mother. In fact he was so engrossed in staring at her that he didn't notice I was watching him. I glanced momentarily at my mother who was rubbing her throat with a wince then looked back at Inuyasha.

I had always wondered… but maybe Inuyasha really did fancy my mother?

I shuddered at the thought. If I was a man I wouldn't touch my mother with a barge pole… not that she wasn't attractive, but because I wouldn't like to get involved with a human icicle. But then again, if I was a typical man then I probably wouldn't give a damn. Human icicles was probably what turned Inuyasha on… take Kikyo for example.

He finally noticed my attention and quickly looked away, striking up a conversation with Miroku beside him as though he hadn't been staring. I narrowed my eyes slightly but got back on with my breakfast before it got cold.

"Oh, Kagome," My mother suddenly touched my arm. "I want you to do something for me." She pulled a small, flat box from her inside her kimono and handed it to me. "I want you to deliver this to Kikyo, it's a thank you present for her medicine."

Inwardly I groaned hard. On the outside I tried to sound casual. "Can't you have one of the servants give it to her?"

"I don't trust the servants to take it." She opened the box for me to see. It was a piece of jewellery, a bracelet of jade if I wasn't mistaken. "I doubt it would ever get to her if one of them took it."

"Ok, I'll take it to her." I took the box and slipped it inside my kimono. I glanced back at Inuyasha, just in time to see him look away from me. My heart squeezed slightly and I took a deep breath to calm it.

Maybe I should ask Kikyo if she knew the symptoms of a heart disorder. All this fluttering was getting me worried…

Kikyo wasn't at home when I called on her later that morning. I knocked several times on the door, but I got no answer. She wasn't tending to her herbs on the allotment either. I wandered around the compound for the good part of an hour, asking people if they'd seen her.

"Probably down the stables, Princess." The blacksmith pointed his metal hammer towards said stables. "Likes tending the animals that girl."

"Thank you." I smiled at the old man and he went back to work, forging some strange kind of sword. I would have asked who it was for, but I didn't want to stall any longer. The sooner I had the meeting with Kikyo, the sooner it would be over with.

I found her in the stables. I also found Naraku.

"You stay because you love Inuyasha?"

Those few words made me freeze, only a foot away from the stable door. I knew it was rude to eavesdrop, but I couldn't help it. Pressing myself back against the outer wall of the stable, I listened in through the open doorway. Amongst the odd stamping of hooves, two people could be heard conversing within… one was unmistakably Kikyo.

"Why do you continue to ask me that question day after day, Naraku?"

Ah… so Sango had been right when she'd said Naraku had a fancy for Kikyo. And more than just a passing one. I also wondered… shouldn't Kikyo be calling Naraku 'Lord Naraku'. It seemed a little too informal…

"It isn't right for a pure miko such as yourself to long after a half-bred demon mongrel like the Lord's son." Was the man's response. I clasped a hand over my mouth… I really didn't think that the advisor to Lord Inu should be saying such things about his son.

"What makes you think that I long after him?" Kikyo was allusive as ever in her answers.

"Why else would you stay here in this grotty little castle when you could have so much more?"

"Maybe the reason why I do not accept your offer is because I do not wish to lead a more glamorous life." There was a crunching sound inside the stable, which I presumed was from Kikyo feeding the horses their daily meal. "I do not want to be a Lady. I am a miko, and I will always be such."

"Would you be saying that to Inuyasha when he proposes to you?"

Since when was Inuyasha going to propose to Kikyo?! I found myself scowling.

"Perhaps." Kikyo sighed as she moved elsewhere in the stable. "Or perhaps his offer will be more appealing than yours."

She shouldn't really be provoking this man, he sounded dangerous.

"I will come to you again tomorrow, Kikyo. And I shall ask you again… to be my Lady."

"And I will reply the same as I do everyday, and say 'no thank you'."

That was the end of the conversation. There was a few passing moments of silence before I heard someone coming towards the door, I quickly ducked out of sight behind a barrel of half-rotten apples and peeked out as Naraku stormed out of the stable. Well… not quite storming, since he seemed pretty calm, but there was definitely an air of anger around him as he purposefully made his way back towards the castle. He didn't look back… if he had, he probably would have seen me.

I waited a minute or two before straightening and brushing out the creases in my kimono that had come from crouching down. I walked into the stable.

"Good morning, Kikyo." I smiled pleasantly, hoping that maybe this year she would have grown out of her dislike of me.

She turned slightly and regarded me silently for a moment. Her scrutiny made me uneasy and I shifted uncomfortably as I tried to hold the smile on my face. She finally went back to feeding a black horse some grain from a bucket. Her dislike still hung in the air. Go figure… "Good morning." She returned evenly.

"Um…" I stepped forward slightly. "My mother wants to thank you for the medicine you gave her." Not that it had helped or anything from what I'd seen.

"She's welcome." Kikyo went to the next horse, putting a metre distance between us. Feeling foolish and childish I quickly stepped forward to follow.

"She wants to give you a present." I pulled the box out of my kimono and held it out to her. "It's a bracelet."

She took the box from me. Her fingers brushed against mine for a moment and I tried not to recoil… they were very cold hands. Carefully she opened the box and regarded the contents for a moment, neither smiling or frowning. Then with a firm clap she shut it again and passed it back to me. "I can't accept this gift."

I blinked. "Why not?" I'd give anything for my mother to offer me a gift in such an offhand manner as a 'thank you', or a 'well-done'.

"I have no need for materialistic possessions." She said simply with a light shrug of one should and picked up a new bucket to feed the last horse. "Her thanks are enough for me."

I wanted to slap myself. Or slap Kikyo, either would have done. Now my mother would think that I had said something to make Kikyo rebuke the gift… she'd blame me of course. I sighed aloud and turned. "Ok, I'll tell her."

"Will the wedding be soon?"

I stopped and turned back. "Sorry?"

"You and Inuyasha are to be married by the end of Autumn, aren't you?" she glanced back at me coolly. "When exactly will it be?"

This was all news to me. "I… I don't know."

She shrugged again and went back to feeding the big animal, stroking its neck as she did so. I stared at her for a second before frowning to myself and walking out. That miko made little to no sense whatsoever…

__

~Inuyasha~

"You know… I think Lady Kagome really has a thing going for you."

I glared at Miroku. Very hard.

"What?" he asked innocently. "It was only an observation."

"Well not a very good one." I retorted. "Kagome has nothing going for me. And likewise I have nothing going for her. Now stop talking because this conversation is creeping me out." I went back to practising my sword swings… but it didn't feel quite right with a wooden substitute.

"Inuyasha… what is it exactly that you don't like about the Princess?" Miroku asked from the sidelines of the practise hall. "I mean, you always complain about her, but what exactly is it that makes you hate her so much."

I stopped swinging the rod. "She always cheats when we play board games."

"So do you."

"I have to!" I snapped. "Otherwise I would lose all the time."

"Well I cheat as well, but you don't hate me."

I glanced at him in surprise. "You cheat on me?"

His eyes darted left and then back again. "No." he lied.

I growled slightly as I rolled my eyes and went back to my practise. Now what else didn't I like about the Princess? "Oh yeah… she always flirts with the guards – no – she flirts with everyone! You leave her alone for a minute and she's chatting up the next guy she sees."

"Maybe what you perceive as flirting is what is actually called friendly conversation?"

"Shut up."

He sighed and fell quiet for a while, but it wasn't long before he piped up again. "Don't tell me you haven't noticed."

"Haven't noticed what?" I said irritably, practising a vertical slash at my invisible training opponent.

"That whenever you're in the room, her eyes always seem to draw back to you." Miroku said casually. I stopped mid-stroke and looked over at him. He seemed deadly serious.

"What are you talking about?" I scowled. "I never see her looking at me."

"Of course you don't, because the minute you look over she looks away. But I see it all… and there's something about the way she looks at you." He cocked his head thoughtfully. "She didn't look at you that way last year… but this year, things seem to be different."

Everything was different this year. "Looks at me how?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Like… she _burns _for you." His eyes twinkled.

I threw the wooden sword at him. "You're making things up! It's not funny!" It was so frustrating how he dodged the sword. "You're disgusting!"

"I'm honest!"

"You're anything but!"

"I'm only saying what I see." He picked up the sword that lay behind him and twirled it between his fingers like a baton. "Something is different about this year. Even Miss Sango told me that something strange happened when you two saw each other for this first time this Autumn. She said that Kagome near fainted at the sight of you."

"She said I smelt." I folded my arms huffily. That had kinda hurt…

"It was more likely that the sight of you made her weak at the knees." Miroku; the romantic. "I'm telling you, she's seeing you in a different light this year."

All she'd done so far was insult me and shout at me. There wasn't all that much of a difference in her attitude from last year. "You're wrong." I marched over to take the sword back.

He rapped me on the head with it as soon as I was close enough. "Ow!" I yelped, reeling back, holding my forehead. "What was that for?"

"Perhaps a knock on the head would knock some sense into it?" he shrugged and tossed me the wooden weapon. I fumbled with it before gaining a steady grip.

"You're a bastard."

"So a lot of people tell me." It didn't really bother him it seemed.

__

~Kagome~

"I saw something strange today." I told Inuyasha as we played our board game that evening in one of our 'arrangements from hell'. Two in as many days. What bad luck…

"Oh?" His attention remained fixed on the board before us, probably debating his next move.

I fiddled with the counters I had hidden in my hand… Inuyasha hadn't noticed that I had already taken three of his pieces in the last ten minutes. "I went to see Kikyo this morning."

"You two had a scrap in the mud yet?" he smirked. "When are you going to get it through your thick skull that she doesn't like you."

"I know that." I ignored his jab. "But at least I'm mature enough to be nice about it and – oh my god! What's that?!"

"What?" he turned to look where I was pointing. With his back turned I quickly snatched one of his counters off the board and added it to the pile growing under the table. He turned back to me dubiously. "I didn't see anything?"

"It was only a bat, you shouldn't get too worked up, Inuyasha." I said with a wave of dismissal. "It's my turn isn't it?" I moved one of my counters. He frowned as he counted his pieces… it was only a matter of time before he realised his counters were decreasing in number. "Anyway, I saw something strange this morning."

"Yeah, you said." He said sulkily. At least he'd noticed he was losing.

"Naraku seems to be proposing to Kikyo."

His eyes slowly slid up from the board to meet mine. "What?" that had sounded like a very disgusted and disbelieving 'what'.

I shrugged. "You heard me."

He gave me a long look, but I kept my attention on the board. "Did… is she accepting?" he asked quietly.

Why, did he want Kikyo for himself? "No. She seems pretty much opposed to the idea."

I heard him sigh in relief. "Good."

I looked up. "You seem relieved."

"Wouldn't anyone be?" he folded his arms grouchily. "I feel sorry for the woman who has to marry that man."

"You don't like him?" I asked. He shook his head. For some reason that made me feel better… at least he didn't have any delusions about the advisor. "I don't either."

"Looks like we agree on something." He smirked lightly. I felt a smile tug at my own lips and we looked at each other.

We were smiling at each other…

Urgh!

We both snapped our eyes on the board, all smiles wiping off our faces as our attention became forcefully transfixed on something else. I cleared my throat, feeling my cheeks burn and my stomach be consumed with butterflies. I wasn't used to having this flustered reaction every time Inuyasha did something reasonably pleasant. "Um… your turn." I mumbled.

"Right." He coughed as well. It almost seemed as though we were both coming down with my mother's cold. He made his move quickly… a good move. He'd win if I didn't do something quick.

I looked up and stared at the wall behind him.

It wasn't long before he noticed my gaze and turned to see what I was looking at. In the brief moments he looked away, I grabbed the counter that had just moved and started to retract it under the table.

He looked back too soon, spotted my hand and with an angry sound slammed his hand down on top of mine, pinning it to the table with a bang, upsetting the rest of the counters and ruining the game. "You sneaky cheat!"

"What are you talking about?!" I tried to pull my hand out from under his but I didn't want him to dig his claws into my delicate skin anymore than he had done. "This is my piece – I was just moving it!"

"You lie badly!" he swept his other hand out and upturned the table. The four counters I'd hidden under it were suddenly on display.

"Ah…" I couldn't think of what to say.

"And where's the rest of them?!" he demanded.

"What rest?" I shot back in outrage.

He grabbed me by the arms and hauled me to my feet. He gave me a shake that had my brain rattling… and several counters falling out of my kimono. When he stopped shaking me and my head stopped spinning I looked down and saw the evidence of my crime. "Ah…"

"_You,_" he hissed. "Are just one big waste of space!"

And with that parting sentiment he stomped out. I took a moment to straighten my rumpled clothes before looking down at the upturned table with a sigh. I really couldn't recall a time when one of these games hadn't ended with the table upside down. 

The door opened behind me and I turned, expecting it to be Inuyasha for some reason. I was mildly surprised when I saw it was Miroku. He smiled, ignoring the destroyed board game and table on the floor like it wasn't there. "Evening, Lady Kagome."

"Good evening." I was supposed to be wary of this guy according to the advice of more than half the castle women. I'd known him since he was thirteen… he hadn't changed in six years.

"Lady Kagome, would you mind taking a walk with me?"

Suspicious… but I didn't want to be rude, and I doubted that Miroku was all that bad, so I nodded and followed him. "Was there something you wanted to talk to me about?" I asked as we made our way through the corridors. They were fairly empty at this time of the evening – people were either going to bed, eating, or having little get-togethers.

"I suppose." He said in an off-hand manner. "Does my wanting to talk to you seem to have an ulterior motive?"

I shot him an incredulous look. Everything he did seemed to have a hidden motive. "Does it happen to have anything to do with Inuyasha?"

His eyes darted quickly right, and then straight again. "No." he lied.

We walked to the end of the corridor in silence.

"But seeing as how you brought him up," Miroku started suddenly. "You wouldn't happen to know when you're marrying him, would you?"

I sighed. "Everyone keeps talking about the wedding." With a frown I stopped and turned to him. "I think I must have missed something here but no one told me that the wedding would be this Autumn."

"So… you don't know _why _they put forward the date?" he asked me with a slightly bewildered look. I shook my head emphatically to get my point across. "So… you didn't know, that in actual fact, it was Inuyasha who set the wedding forward?"

My stomach dropped. "Excuse me?"

Miroku looked unsettled. "Forgive me, it isn't my place to tell you… Inuyasha forbid me not to – and if you ever talked to him about it he would deny it strongly. But the truth is… I do believe he's quite taken with you this year."

Since when? I racked my memory for any indication that Inuyasha had shown interest in me. So far… he'd been treating me like he had every other year… I couldn't detect anything different. "Are you sure?" I asked uncertainly. "Maybe you've got us mixed up – I heard he was after Kikyo, not me-"

"Oh, I'm very sure." Miroku beamed at me. "He told me himself. Couldn't stop talking about how beautiful you've become this year. But… you know how much of a private person Inuyasha is, how insecure and shy he can be when it comes to members of the opposite sex… he'd get embarrassed if you approached him about this…"

At the risk of sounding like a potty-mouthed Princess… what a load of bull.

"So, don't tell him I told you." Miroku patted me on the shoulder, I eyed that gloved hand dubiously. "Just between you and me… pretend you don't know anything."

"You're pulling my leg." I told him bluntly.

"Why would you think that? My hands are no way near your… oh, I see." He nodded knowingly. "You think I'm lying? Well… you can see for yourself. At supper… keep your eyes on him and you'll see how often he looks at you when he thinks you're not looking. In reality he pines after you, Lady Kagome. All you have to do is open your eyes and see for yourself."

I didn't believe a word of it… but I would keep my eye out and look for telltale hints if what he said was true. I really doubted it. It was a case of seeing for myself.

__

~Inuyasha~

I was beginning to suspect Miroku was up to something… after I had made that stupid comment about Kagome's handmaid being interested in him the day I would be willing to marry Kagome herself, he'd been acting very suspicious.

"I'm telling you, she's interested." Miroku said subtly as he took a sip of his drink at supper time.

I glanced over to Kagome… she was looking at me again. She'd been doing that an awful lot lately. We both quickly glanced away from each other and I darted a look at Miroku. "She's not interested – she's glaring." I hissed quietly.

"She's looking at you with curiosity." He returned, flicking a glance to Kagome and then back to his food. Actually… I was almost certain that he'd been looking at the handmaid, not Kagome. I didn't make anything of it. "See, she's doing it again."

She was watching me out of the corner of her eye… I don't think she realised I was doing the same, but it was certainly strange. "I never noticed she did that before…"

"What? Gaze at you with love and adoration?" Miroku smirked slightly. "You really should be more observant Inuyasha. That girl is giving you all kinds of signals… and you're just not hearing any of them. Maybe that's why she gets so frustrated with you, because you are oblivious to her affections."

"You're making that up." I snapped.

"Am I?" He looked at me. "You only say that because you do not know the language of love, my friend."

I stared at him through hooded eyes, chewing slowly. What a load of… "And what would the 'language of love' be?" I mimicked his smooth romantic tone. "You only say one thing to woo a girl and that's 'will you bear my child?'. Your language of love has got a vocabulary of only five words."

"That isn't my only pick up line." He admonished shortly. "At least I know the signs a girl gives off when she's interested and when she isn't."

"And they are?"

He cleared his throat. "When you lock gazes with a girl across the room, the natural reaction is to keep your eyes moving elsewhere. If the girl who catches your eyes for that moment is interested, she will look away, look down and fiddle with something like her hair or her clothes. A gesture of nervousness that you've flustered her."

I stared at him with widening eyes. It sounded like it made sense… but. "I've never noticed a girl do that?"

"Do you stay to watch her for long enough when she's looked away?" he challenged.

A good point, no I hadn't. I glanced over at Kagome again, she wasn't looking my way… but I waited. And sure enough… after only twenty seconds she glanced over, then quickly glanced away whilst reaching a hand up to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear.

Miroku gave a soft laugh beside me.

"No…" I breathed. "That doesn't mean anything."

"And when you talk to her… you'll notice that the dark parts of her eyes get larger." Miroku nudged me. "A certain sign that she's attracted to you."

"Or has been drinking." I noticed a lot of dilating eyes on the very drunk.

"There are other ways of telling whether or not she likes you." Miroku went on. "All subconscious acts of course, but haven't you noticed she makes more eye contact than other girls her age-"

"Yes, but she does that with everyone-"

"And haven't you noticed that she touches her neck a lot around you."

"Cause she says she gets a pain there whenever I'm around-"

"And she tends to lean toward you in the middle of conversation."

"Because she needs to – she says I'm deaf and I don't-"

"The mouth will tell a million lies, but the body and the eyes will tell only the truth." Miroku interrupted abruptly. I scowled at him. He may like to think of himself as a smooth ladies man but in truth his only reputation with women was to chase them away from him… I wasn't sure I could trust his judgement about such matters. Besides… I'd known Kagome since she was a child. I doubt she was attracted to me back then, and her attitude towards me hadn't changed in ten years… so I doubt she was attracted to me now.

But… some small seed of doubt had been planted in the back of my mind, and I couldn't shake the feeling that maybe… what if he was right?

AN: You can so tell that all this is going to come flying back around like a boomerang and hit Miroku in the eye. 


	4. An Old Friend

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Author's Notes: The central heating's broken (or dad's being a snot again and turned it off), and it's absolutely freezing in this house… as I write this I'm wearing about three coats and seven pairs of socks…

Anywho, a lot of people have asked; which story is this fic based on? The Swan Princess or Swan Lake? Answer: Both actually ^_^. The first half of the story seems to be more Swan Princess style, what with the whole arranged marriage leading to a kidnapping and a transformation from princess to swan. In Swan Lake (which is a ballet, not a book or a film) the Princess was a swan from the very beginning and had been for some time apparently, and there was not just the Princess, but many other girls that had been turned into swans called the swan-maidens which differs quite a lot from the Swan Princess story line. So the second half of this fic will seem to stick with the Swan Lake side of the tale.

Or I could have done the French version: Le Lac des Cygnes et ses Maléfices, by Roland Petit and have Inuyasha be the swan for a while ^_^

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Autumn Bane

Chapter 4

An Old Friend

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~Inuyasha~

"I had the strangest dream last night," Kagome began at breakfast the next morning. Several people around our corner of the room turned to look at her expectantly… I just rolled my eyes and went on gulping down my soup. "I think I was dreaming about heaven, it was really nice and pretty and everything was so peaceful and tranquil. And you were there, and you were there, and you were there," she began going around the table pointing to every individual in order. Not surprisingly, she skipped past me with a deliberate pause to finally point at Miroku. "And you were there!"

I couldn't resist. "So where was I then?" I inquired quite innocently.

She glanced towards me, one eye narrowed slightly. "Downstairs. If you know what I mean."

Score: One – nil to Kagome. But I could still make evens by the end of the meal. "I had a dream last night too. It was about you, believe it or not."

Her eyes widened slowly and soon everyone's attention was on me, waiting for what I had to say. I could tell by the expression on half of their faces that they were expecting me to say something wittily nasty, say that I had been in heaven too and she'd been there with me – in several different pieces or something. It would be enough to even the score, but I knew of a way to make it two–one in my favour.

"And?" Kagome prompted, judging by her light frown she was probably expecting me to make a verbal slap.

"And what?" I gave her my blankest look. "I had a dream about you. That's all."

Her frown deepened. "Yes, but what about me?"

I let a secretive sort of smile grace my face… well, more like a smug 'I know something you don't know' smirk. "Wouldn't you like to know?" I effectively put an end to the discussion as I went back to eating.

A moment passed and her scowl deepened to a dangerous glower, people around us got back on with their breakfast without a second thought to the nerve that I had just touched. Kagome hated being excluded from things. I knew this from way back when we were small, if anything was going on, Kagome wanted to know about it. Telling her it was none of her business just wasn't acceptable.

I saw her glance around at the people around us before stealing herself to get back on with her meal. I smirked to myself. With so many people around she couldn't openly make any derogatory comments. Score: one all.

"It's ok, Sango," Kagome suddenly said quite loudly. "I suppose Inuyasha can't discuss his dreams openly because they tend to be rather raunchy. He was probably just fantasising about me again."

I spluttered into my soup and Miroku started thumping my back in concern. When I got my breath back I glared at her. "You can't just say that!" She'd just snatched another score right from beneath my nose!

"Why, was it supposed to be a secret?" she raised an eyebrow at me. Another point.

Everyone was staring at me. Kagome's points had gone up three to one in her favour and if I didn't do something quick I was going to fall drastically behind. Everyone was still staring at me… I hated it when they did that. "Well…" I started off uncertainly, at the same time her other eyebrow flicked up, awaiting my witty response expectantly, "Well… who'd want to fantasise about a girl like you?"

Lame… really, really lame…

"You would, obviously." Miroku said complacently from my side. I shot him a scowl… who needed enemies like Kagome when you had friends like Miroku? I decided to lay low for the rest of that meal. If I did and said nothing then I wouldn't leave myself open for an easy hit. I had to get my act together… I wasn't exactly on top form today.

Fortunately after breakfast I didn't have to see Kagome for the rest of the day, only from afar. On a normal day I would be glad for the chance to get away from her… but today I felt strangely dissatisfied. I put that down to my loss at breakfast.

"You spout a load of rubbish, monk." I snapped at Miroku as I threw some rocks down the well. Despite having fallen down that thing when I was young (don't ask me how, I don't remember after I bumped my head) I didn't have much fear of heights or wells. Kagome on the other hand…

"What do you mean?" Miroku said absently from where he stood a few metres away examining the cutting edge of his shakujo. Show me another monk who sharpens his staff like this guy and I'll eat my sword. Miroku's one of a kind. 'A kind of what?' you may ask.

"About Kagome." I dropped another rock and listened for the telltale 'clonk!' sound that signalled it had hit the bottom. "She was making digs at me all through breakfast, so fast I could barely get an insult in edgeways. There is _no way _that girl 'burns' for me."

"Oh dear." Miroku gave me a piteous look. "She hurt your feelings."

"No!" I slapped my palm against the well angrily. "I'm just telling you that Kagome is as despicable as ever and whatever you _think _you saw in her eyes when she was looking at me is total fiction!"

Miroku looked off into the distance as he rested the staff against his shoulder. "That's what you think…" he said in an airily light tone.

"What?" I frowned at him.

He blinked, as if only just realising he'd said something. "Oh… it's nothing…"

I narrowed my eyes but went back to throwing the rocks down the well. It was the end of the matter.

"Only, Kagome came to see me last night." Miroku went on quickly. I glanced back at him dubiously. "Oh don't look at me like that, she did. And she happened to tell me something very interesting."

"Like?"

"Like… how much she enjoys your company these days."

"You made that up."

"I certainly did not." Miroku lied. He saw my incredulous look and shifted his weight slightly. "Ok… maybe that was a bit of a fib… but I really didn't think you'd believe the truth of what she said."

"And what did she say?" I rolled my eyes. Trying to get something honest out of Miroku was like trying to make Lady Jun crack a smile. It was hard.

"She said that she doesn't know how to deal with her feelings for you right now." He said seriously. I wanted to laugh, but somehow managed to school my expression so I nodded as though considering his words thoughtfully. "She said that she finds herself covering her attraction to you by fighting with you and trading insults. But she also says that she's tiring of your arguments together, that she really wishes that she could marry you and have your children."

"She really said that, huh?"

"Indeed."

"Sounds like something you'd say."

"Why would I want to marry you and have your children?"

"Well you do have this hang-up about getting someone to bear you a-"

"The point is," he cleared his throat loudly. "Lady Kagome is struggling to come to terms with her feelings. She doesn't know how to approach you correctly. Can't you see? She adores you from afar but she needs you to make the first move – to show her what it's like to feel love, she needs you to melt the ice around her guarded heart so that she can finally become the warm, loving wife and mother to your children that she _longs _to be."

"Oh…" I sniffed and rubbed a hand over my eyes. "I think… I think I'm going to cry. That's so beautiful!"

Miroku was smart enough to sense my sarcasm. Clever boy.

I dropped my hand and smirked at him. "Why don't you go break the ice with her then? In fact you could probably break my little fiancée in for me."

He sucked in a breath through his teeth. "She really wouldn't like to hear you saying things like that."

I snapped my fingers in damnation. "Curses! Why do I always say cool stuff when she's not around to hear it?!"

Miroku muttered something under his breath about going to suffocate himself in a cupboard as he turned and stalked off. I didn't see him again until that night when we all went off to bed. I arrived late and had to tiptoe my way across the room in order to get to my bed without waking anyone up. I would have stomped and slammed doors if it had only been Kagome, but Sango could probably kick my ass so I didn't want to risk pissing her off.

Besides, Kagome wasn't actually asleep when I arrived in my room. Sure she pretended to be, but her irregular breathing gave her away, and her body seemed especially tense under that blanket. Whatever she was tense about, it wasn't my problem, so I stripped off my shirt and settled down into my futon… and had the worst nightmare of my life.

I dreamt that I kissed Kagome. And what was worse… I think I was enjoying it.

I literally screamed when I woke up the next morning, and I woke up the other three occupants of my room along with me. Sango shot straight up, looking around. "What was that? What's going on?" she finally blinked at me. "Why are you screaming?"

I felt dirty, cheap and defiled. I shuddered as I clamped the blankets over my head and pointedly tried to ignore Kagome's presence. She was sitting up out of bed with a big yawn, one of her joints cracked loudly as she made a soft noise in her throat. "What time is it…?" she mumbled out.

Urgh… bad images from my dream kept popping into my head. Yuck. Yuck, yuck, yuck!

"Time to get up?" Miroku was rising as well, and after a few exchanged morning greetings with the girls he left the room.

"Come on, get dressed quickly," Sango said to Kagome after the monk had left. "If we hurry we can probably see the sunrise."

"Sunrise is always the prettiest time of the day." Kagome agreed as they both grabbed their things and shuffled out of the bedroom.

I preferred sunset personally. But only because it looked quite nice in the sky… I didn't like what it stood for though… because usually a sunset on a night before the new moon was the most dreaded events of my life… coming straight in after Autumn time. I remember when I was young I used to silently beg that the sun stay up for just a little bit longer. It never listened.

I somehow managed to drag myself out of bed within half an hour. That didn't mean I was quite awake though, and I pottered aimlessly around the inner castle for quite a while before someone gave me my mission for the day.

"Inuyasha," My father caught my shoulder as he passed me in the shoulder, spinning me around abruptly to face him, my ankles held – but only just.

"What?" I pulled a groggy face, trying to get across that I wasn't in the mood for anyone's happy morning attitude. That _dream _was still fresh in my mind and Miroku would be lucky if he didn't come across me today. I was going to give him hell for putting such stupid ideas and thoughts in my head.

"I need you to do a little favour for me." My father began.

I held up my hands quickly. "No – I'm going for a walk. I think I have a hang-over or some kind of headache coming on, I need to clear my brain."

"Good. And while you're doing that you can take Kagome with you."

I closed my eyes and winced slightly. "No."

"Just one quick walk." He cajoled.

"No."

"A ten minute walk down the hill and back."

"How about I push her down then throw her back up?"

"No."

"Then no."

"Inuyasha…" His hand tightened slightly on my shoulder and his tone took on a slightly more warning nature. I glanced hesitantly at his hand before flicking my gaze back to his. "You are going to take the lovely Lady Kagome out for a walk and you are going to entertain her and make her enjoy your company. If she comes back with even one bad word to say about the trip then I will bring it down on your head. Understand?"

When my father used the fish eye he could be quite scary…

I swallowed, trying hard not to show any unease right then. "'Course." I shrugged quickly, sliding out of range of his hand. "I'll take her for a walk… we can… we can talk nice and stuff."

He narrowed his eyes slightly before his whole demeanour switched back again and he smiled. "There's my lad." He turned and walked away. "Remember! If she doesn't have fun it'll be on your head."

"Yeah!" I called after him, before adding quietly. "You crazy old fool…"

He probably heard that. He may be old but his hearing didn't suffer for it. With a sigh I pickled off in search of Kagome. She tended to hang around outdoors, unusual for a Princess, but that was where I headed in search of her.

I didn't have to search very long when I found her on the steps of the entrance having an in-depth conversation with Miroku.

"What are you two whispering about?" I demanded the moment I saw them.

Kagome jumped around with the most guilty expression she could have managed. Miroku didn't jump, but I could already tell from the faint flicker of his brow pulling down that I had interrupted something he wished I hadn't interrupted.

Either they'd both been bitching about me or Kagome really had been in the middle of confessing her 'long-denied' secret love for me. I have to admit… that at that moment I wasn't sure which I had walked in on.

I gave Kagome a rap on the head with my knuckles as I moved down the steps past her. "Come on. We're going for a walk."

She blanched at me. "I beg your pardon?"

"A walk. As in going for?" She could be slow sometimes. "Get your brain in gear, Princess."

"Yes, but why?" she stood up, frowning at me. "I've already been for a walk this morning with Sango."

"Yeah, well you're going again, with me." She was still staring at me in disbelief and uncertainty. She probably thought I was going to lure her out into the woods and bump her off so there would be no more wedding. I didn't quite blame her.

"Uh…" she managed intelligently.

My fists clenched with barely restrained impatience. She wasn't quite moving fast enough for my liking, and I wanted to get this over with as fast as possible. I took us all by surprise when I reached over and grabbed her wrist to drag her off. "Come on! No point dawdling!"

As soon as she was following at a sufficient enough pace I snatched my hand back. I didn't like touching Kagome for very long. She repulsed me. Though I hadn't been saying that in my dream…

"Where are we walking to then?" she asked as we passed the guards at the castle gate and started down the slippery steps.

I thought for a moment about our destination. A place that was close enough to make this quick, but not too close to make my father mad. I eventually decided on a reasonable place. "We're going to go to the meadow."

"There's a meadow here?"

"Sure there is." I replied evenly. "There are meadows all over the land, don't you notice? Or are you too busy sipping tea, Princess?"

"That's not all Princesses do, you know?" she said flatly.

I grunted. "Whatever." It wasn't going very well. If my father discovered that we'd been barking at each other the whole trip then he'd make me do a thousand sit-ups and take away my meals for a week. Better take the pleasantness up a notch. Small talk seemed fit right then. "You can see them from the castle… when there isn't any mist hanging around and stuff."

"No you can't." She was going to make this very difficult for me.

"Yes you can." I countered. "You don't live here in the summer do you so you don't have a clue what you're-"

"I'm _guessing _that the castle walls block the view of the landscape below for us ordinary people who can't quite jump as high as you can." She said.

Ah… a good point. I wasn't using a human point of view here. "Well…" I struggled for some kind of nicety. "They have wildflowers and that kind of crap. Pretty in Autumn with all the trees… if you like that kind of thing."

An odd silence came over her for the rest of the journey down the hill. She was probably confused at my obvious effort to be nice. She didn't know what to say. I smirked inwardly as I set out to confuse her even more. I turned and offered her my hand. "Princess, you're going to slip and fall and break that skinny little neck of yours. Why don't I carry you down?"

I don't think the skinny neck comment was going down well. "I'll manage well enough on my own thank you." She responded in clipped tones.

"I didn't mean skinny." I said quickly. "I meant… it's a nice neck. Like a… a… water bird's neck."

"Wet and oily?"

Probably. "No… long and thin." I struggled to recall what Miroku had said about her. But the only other thing I could remember him saying was that she had a nice bust and behind. Somehow I didn't really want to think about those particular areas on this girl.

She gave the slightest shake of her head and stepped around me as she continued on her way down the hill. "Which way?" she asked as the ground began to even out.

"Take a right towards that old black tree over there." I pointed and she followed my directions. I toddled after her swatting at the odd mosquito that took a flying dive at my face.

"I've just had a thought," Kagome said suddenly. "Aren't we supposed to have a chaperone with us?"

"Probably," I clapped my hands around a midge. "Why? Expecting something to happen?"

She snorted. "I'm expecting us to start killing each other any minute now, that's all."

Sometimes I just couldn't get over how un-lady like this girl was. "I bet you have a dagger under all those skirts don't you?" I remarked casually.

She whipped around to face me as I caught up to her. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me." 

She narrowed her eyes. "What is under this kimono is none of your business. Future husband or not." She turned and walked on ahead. I shrugged to myself and wondered if this was the right way to where we wanted to go. "Besides," she said after a moment. "I don't fight with a dagger."

I processed that for a moment before stopping. "You fight… period?"

She stopped and turned to face me with a sly smile. "You don't spend sixteen years watching soldiers train each other in the courtyard and learn nothing."

"Yeah, but that's different. You can't learn anything from just watching people hit each other with sticks." I pointed out.

"Of course you can." She looked around before spying a lone stick on the ground, roughly long enough to be a proxy sword, though a little too short. "It's surprising what you can learn when you just pay attention."

She performed a short, but strong sequence of moves of an intermediate fighter. Her hold on the stand-in hilt was perfect, her balance good. Her footing was a little off, but I was half willing to put that down to the fact that it was hard to move with complete fluid grace in a restricting kimono.

If she'd learnt all that from just _watching _others…

"Not bad," I shrugged indifferently. "But I bet all you can do is imitate. In a real fight you wouldn't stand a chance."

"Oh yeah?" she looked back at me with definite challenge in her eyes.

"Monkey see monkey do." I looked down my nose at her. She was barely intermediate. I was a pro. Who was she trying to fool?

"Draw your sword then." She hitched her obi slightly towards the left, loosening the front of her kimono enough to let me see the flimsy white material of the two layers of skirt beneath the kimono. With a little more adjustment I glimpsed actual leg and she found enough freedom to get into a proper stance. I stared at her, aware that my mouth was hanging open a little. "Inuyasha, close your mouth, you're going to catch flies. And stop staring at my leg."

"I'm only staring because I thought you princesses rode on wheels, not legs." I scoffed, but I didn't draw my sword.

She noticed this. "Too chicken? Are you afraid you'll lose your pride if you lose to a girl?"

Not at all. I just didn't want to draw against a girl full stop. There wasn't even a match. "You're not worth my time, Princess."

She frowned at me "Try me." She seemed intent to prove that she could do more than she was expected to. But she'd always been that way, out to prove that she could do anything I could do, despite her obvious handicap of being both human and female. Sometimes it was funny, sometimes it was admirable. Right now I was torn between amusement, concern that I might actually hurt her, and the irrepressible urge to show her just how strong I was.

I wanted to show off… I admit it.

"You'll regret this." I said loftily as I drew the practise sword from where it was tied to my hip.

"You still fight with a little wooden toy?" she looked like she was going to laugh. "You're seventeen and you still carry that thing around like a beginner."

Said the girl who was holding a tree branch. "For your information," I retorted, stung. "I did have a real katana… but long story short, I don't have it any more."

"You lost it didn't you?"

"In a fight with a dragon. You know how thick their hide is, right? Shattered on impact." I made a small jerk with my sword to demonstrate the move. "I had to beat the thing with my bare hands."

She sniggered. "You misplaced it more like."

Actually I accidentally dropped it down the well… but she didn't need to know that. "I did too fight a dragon! I have the scars to prove it!"

"You're stalling, chicken boy." She taunted. "You're probably wetting yourself right now!"

"With laughter, sure!" I hitched the sword up. "Heads up."

I went slow and easy on her, making the path of my first strike obvious. She blocked quickly, the concentration obvious in her face. I struck another way, and she blocked without hesitation, her transition between positions was graceful and smooth, not something I often saw in other male fighters. Her blocks were relatively weak though, I could probably break through them easily.

Giving her the benefit of the doubt I sped up. She caught me off guard when she blocked then moved straight into an offensive mode, aiming a strike at my ribs. If I'd been any slower she would have clipped me, if I'd been human I would have been struck. Thank god I'm not human so I didn't lose face.

"Elegant and graceful in a girly sort of way," I observed flippantly. "Not the best I've ever seen."

"But not the worst, right?"

"Oh don't fool yourself." I narrowed my eyes. "The only reason you're any good is because you're pretty masculine anyway."

She launched a furious attack on me which I dodged easily, only having to block with the practise sword once or twice.

"Why do you always say such mean things?!" she snapped, clashing her branch against my sword. We were locked together in a momentary double block…

That's when I noticed how rigid and tense she was. I reckoned even a small puff of wind would knock her clean over. Giving our locked weapons a tiny little push in her direction, she tipped over and landed on her behind, blinking in astonishment. I cocked my head sideways and looked her up and down. She made a right sight…

With her hair sticking up every which way, her kimono parted all the way to her obi, giving anyone looking a good look at those two smooth legs that supported her weight. The last time I had seen those things was when she was ten. I hadn't seen them since. Back then they had been about as skinny and shapeless as any other ten year olds legs. It was amazing how much a girl's body changed in six short years.

"Ok…" she said, flicking back a bang of hair with a muddy finger, drawing my attention back to her flushed face. "So sword-fighting isn't my speciality"

"So what is?" I glanced down at her legs a moment as she sat up further, beginning to stand. What was such a good pair of pins doing on a girl with a rotten core like her? The back of my brain whispered '_devil's advocate'_. 

In answer to my question she stretched out an arm in front of her and drew her other hand up beside her ear in imitation of drawing an arrow. "Long bow."

Figured. It suited women better I suppose. "How pathetic."

"You won't be saying that when I'm sticking sticks in your rear from thirty metres away." She retorted.

At this point I couldn't remember the current score between us. Besides, I was fed up with this little 'walk' now. "We should be getting back. We can't be out here all that long without a chaperone."

"Jeez… what bit you on the…" she trailed off, seemingly schooling her tongue. "You know. You always bring out the worst in me, Inuyasha."

"Glad I'm so special to you." I reached out a hand to her.

She didn't take it. She just stared at it like I was a leper or something. "What?" I scowled.

Her cheeks flushed pink again, this time I had the feeling it had nothing to do with our little bout. "Sorry," she mumbled, taking my hand with hers and letting me help her get to her feet. I didn't get what her problem was. It was just good-manners to help someone up after you'd knocked them down in a sparring match… obviously this was one rule she hadn't been let in on whilst she'd been 'observing'.

The moment she was on her feet she made a show of brushing the mud off her hands and sleeves, refusing to lift her face to see me. She really was a very odd girl…

I probably would have stayed longer to check out this strange attitude she'd suddenly obtained, to see if Miroku was right when he said that Kagome secretly wanted me, but not a moment too soon I caught a musky scent in the air.

Turning my head in the direction that the wind blew from I inhaled deeply. Wolves.

I whipped back to face Kagome. "Go back to the castle, and tell my father that I had to leave… to take care of some business."

She gave me a suspicious frown but said nothing, so I turned and began to run. But no sooner did I get a few metres away when I spun and marched straight back to her. "And you're not walking in the woods like that!" I barked, reaching down to jerk her kimono back into place, shifting her obi to the right.

She squeaked in outrage. "Get your hands off me!" she started slapping my hands away aggressively.

I backed off. "Alright, alright! Calm down!" I turned heel and began to run again. "Go back to the castle, Kagome!"

__

~Kagome~

He actually used my name for once. Inuyasha slipped up now and then, saying my name without realising when he usually made every effort to keep it from rolling off his tongue.

Earlier, on the steps, Miroku had been telling me that Inuyasha was troubled with growing feelings for me. I had listened, uncertain and not sure whether I should believe him or not. Then the lunkhead himself had shown up and I'd decided, no, Inuyasha wasn't falling for him and I wasn't falling for him either.

But when the smallest smile, genuine smile, or half pleasant word from him sent my throat constricting and my heart fluttering I couldn't be so sure that I wasn't falling for him. My mother had once said that around the mid-teen years girls and boys tended to fall in love at the slightest inclination and drop of the hat. She'd just shrugged and said that was the way it was with the young. She even admitted that when she was my age she fell in love with several people that she wouldn't even look twice at normally. But my mother always said that teen love was foolish and not worth the time and energy youths put into it. She was a heartless pessimist.

Though it would explain why my heart fluttered when I thought of times when Inuyasha had smiled at me by mistake. There had to be something _wrong _with me…

I followed his orders anyhow and made my way back toward the castle, absent-mindedly brushing off the odd dead autumn leaf that stuck to my clothes.

"You missed one?" A voice said from close behind me, a voice I didn't recognise.

I spun quickly, half in fear. I was too far away from the castle to get help and Inuyasha (the jerk!) had abandoned me to find my own way. The guy that had cornered me unaware was tall… about as tall as Inuyasha with abundant dark hair pulled back in a high tail. If it wasn't for his barbarian-esque clothes then I wouldn't have recognised him.

"Kouga-kun!"

An: Yep, you may have noticed that Inuyasha's narrative kinda took over the majority of this chapter. I'm sure Kagome can have a turn next time ^_^


	5. Battle Royal

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Author's Notes: I should warn you all that I will be going on holiday to Portugal very soon and I'll be gone for a week or two at most. I think I'll be going on the 26 October which is a week from Sunday and I won't be back until the second week of November. It's my parents silver wedding anniversary present to themselves so they're dragging me along to a five star hotel (which I shall not leave once we arrive there – especially when I get a whole room to myself) and hopefully the weather will hold… But knowing my luck we'll probably drag the black clouds with us…

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Autumn Bane

Chapter 5

Battle Royal

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~Inuyasha~

Wolves are supposed to have reflexes that rival that of a supernaturally fast cat and intuition to boot… yet if you catch them off guard they're nothing but a bunch of pansies.

"WHERE'S KOUGA?!" I bellowed the moment I burst into their little clearing where they were temporarily camping.

The ones who hadn't keeled over with heart attacks jumped around, twitching, to face me. One wolf-man with spiky hair who had been gathered with a group of wolves rose a finger to point at me, his face wore a horrified look. "I-It's that dog guy!"

"Where is the Wimpy Wolf?!" I demanded again, advancing on the group angrily.

Not surprisingly, the wolf-men with sense backed off quickly as I approached. The real wolves, being dumber than the average land animal, began growling collectively and bracing to attack me. _As if _they stood a chance against my claws… "Where is he?!" I reinforced myself, if I hadn't already made myself clear.

"He went looking for you." The patchy haired one said, looking confused as only a wolf could. "Said he wanted to settled the score you started six seasons ago."

"Dammit!" I'd probably just missed him in that case. I turned heel and burned tracks out of the little wolf camp, trying futilely to follow any scent trail that opened up to me. 

The smell of wolf was everywhere, and no matter how brilliant my nose was, I couldn't tell Kouga's apart from any other. It seemed like his scent changed every year – drastically – as he aged. It meant that it made it a lot easier for him to find me than it was for me to track him down first. He had the element of surprise and intuition.

I had what? A wooden sword? Somehow I think our little vendetta was going to turn in his favour this year…

First thing was first – with a wolf like Kouga roaming around Toshiyama I had to make sure that the Princess made it back to the castle safely. If she got picked off by Kouga then I would never hear the last of it from my father. Though I'm sure we'd all get over it given a month or so…

I practically flew to the castle, racing across the forest with every ounce of speed I possessed. I got there in record time and staggered to a breathless halt in the middle of the courtyard. "Where is she?" I gasped, grabbing the nearest servant who was unfortunate enough to be passing too close to me. "She should have been back by now – where is she?"

"Where's who?" Miroku had noticed my arrival and was walking towards me.

"The Princess." I released the servant guy who hastily stumbled away before I wanted any more information. "I sent her back here – is she here?"

"You sound concerned." Miroku gave me an amused look.

"For my own neck!" I snapped. "If Dad learns that I abandoned her in the middle of the forest with wild wolves running around then he'll throw me down the well and board it up for good!"

"You abandoned her in the forest?" he didn't look so amused anymore.

"I uh… no…" I lied blatantly. "That came out wrong… and…"

The arrival of a giggling twit called a Princess and a moronic show-off of a wolf called a Prince made we trail off. My skin literally crawled with contempt.

__

~Kagome~  


"Oh Kouga – I'm too old to be carried around like this! I _am _a princess now, don't you know." I slapped his back playfully as he hauled me up the hillside, carpet style, on his shoulder.

"Princess, peasant, what's the difference? You still can't go wandering all over the hills like that with only a branch at your defence."

"But I'm very good with my branch." I said in a high pitched voice as he jumped the high wall around the castle and landed on the other side as gracefully as a feather touching down.

Kouga spoke breezily, "I'm sure you are, Princess Kagome." 

"What the hell are you two doing?"

My fun deflated like someone had stuck a rather sharp pin in it. A pinhead like Inuyasha. Unfortunately, Kouga chose that moment to turn and face the source of the voice, leaving me on his shoulder and facing the opposite direction. I sighed heavily.

"Still scraping with humans, Dog-turd?"

Hey, I resented that!

"Still scraping full stop, Wimpy Wolf?!" Was Inuyasha's sharp retort, his voice drawing nearer behind me. I wondered what scraping meant in this context…? "Put the Princess down."

"I don't take orders from dogs."

I tapped Kouga on the back to get his attention. "It's ok, you can put me down now." These two didn't get on, and I didn't want to be the cause of another tussle, not if I could help it. Inuyasha would only blame it on me if he got a split lip later on. 

Kouga slowly let me down on the ground and I turned to face Inuyasha, expecting him to be glaring challengingly at Kouga like he usually did when they crossed paths. The rest of the world might be turning to flames but he's never notice with the amount of attention he paid. So I was slightly unnerved and self-conscious to find him glaring at me instead… like he somehow blamed me for… for something…

"What?" I mumbled quietly, giving him my wide-eyed innocent princess look.

"Don't give me that look – you know full well 'what'!" he barked back.

I really hadn't a clue why I'd upset him. "What are you talking about?"

"Just go back inside, Princess." He snapped and switched his attention to Kouga instead.

I gave a slight shake of my head, bewildered at what I'd done wrong this time. But with so many people watching I wasn't going to disobey my future husband, so I just put my head down meekly and pattered off towards the castle building, trying to analyse the situation from Inuyasha's point of view.

He'd seen me arrive with Kouga? So what? He should be relieved that there was someone trustworthy out there to bring me back safely when he'd flat-out abandoned me. Perhaps he was just worried that he would now get in trouble for leaving me out there and as usual he would pin the problem on me.

If he was angry at me for some other reason… well it was way beyond my grasp.

__

~Inuyasha~

Such a stupid flirt… every year she leads him on – and not just Kouga – but practically every guy she talks too. Batting those ridiculously long eyelashes and laughing at really unfunny jokes…

Only this year it's going to be slightly more serious…

"She's not a child anymore, Kouga." Miroku threw caution to the wind between us and the wimpy wolf. "You can't handle a Princess that way anymore."

Kouga gave a sharp flip of his head that had his hair flicking out behind him arrogantly. "Glad at least someone has noticed," he gave me a pointed look. "Kagome has turned into an even more beautiful young woman this year that before." I wanted to gag at this point. "For all the years I've known her, everyone has ignored her developing beauty, taking it for granted, except for me."

I made an angry sound. "What a load of-"

"Since I have watched over her the longest – I've come to announce my intentions." 

Oh god no…

Kouga began in a loud voice so that everyone around could hear. "To make Lady Kagome – _my _Lady."

Miroku had to physically restrain me from beating that announcement right back into his toothless bloodied mouth! "What the hell did you just say?!" I snarled as I strained against Miroku's grip on my arms. "You come closer and say that you two-bit swaggering heap of – of – of WOLF!"

Not my best insult to date. Kouga just smirked at me. "I'm sure you heard me fine, Dog-turd."

"You can't just turn up here and say that!!" I exploded angrily. "You can't have her anyway – she's already engaged to me!"

"I know, I know," Kouga shrugged it off easily. "She complains about it all the time. Well, I'm going to free her of her mundane human betrothal to _you_."

"You say that to Lady Jun!"

He'd met Lady Jun. Needless to say, he began looking nervous. "No you tell her that – me and Kagome are going to run away and elope!"

"Ha!" I laughed caustically. "Says who?! Kagome wouldn't look twice at a tramp like you!"

"At least she smiles at me – all she ever does is glare at you!"

True, very true, but that still didn't mean he was just going to steal her away like this! Not when I still had so much taunting left to do to her. "You'll have to fight me for her!" It had sounded more sensible and less honourable in my head. When I caught Miroku's approving look I groaned aloud. "Not like that!"

"If I have to win Kagome's hand by force – then by all means – let's get on with it!"

Miroku turned without a word and backed off quite sensibly to a safe distance. I cracked my knuckles and braced myself for the battle whilst Kouga kept smirking and looking exceptionally smug with himself. "Alright, wolf – whenever you're-"

I broke off as he disappeared from my line of view, moving faster than I could follow. The next thing I knew of him was his knee embedding itself in my back – without even waiting for the go-ahead!

Kouga always did fight dirty…

__

~Kagome~

"I don't get it…" I murmured, my whole head filled with confusion as my brain struggled to follow what was going on. "Inuyasha's fighting for me…" I turned to Sango. "Are you sure that's _our _Inuyasha down there?"

"It's simple male psychology, Kagome." Sango shrugged lightly as she watched the two young men battle it out below. "He never knows what he's got until it's gone… or begins slipping away."

"You must be joking…" I didn't believe it.

"It's true." Sango glanced at me. "Remember that time you said that when you were six you took his ball?"

"He wasn't playing with it – it was fair game!" I defended the memory of my actions.

"And he bit your head off about it-"

"He bit me plain and simple."

"Well that's because even though guys may not necessarily notice or use their possessions, they still get huffy when they lose them." Sango turned back to the fight. By now Inuyasha had Kouga in a headlock.

"Oh?" I carried on watching Sango from the side. "Are you saying that I'm nothing more than a possession to him?"

"Male psychology, Kagome." Sango shrugged again. "It doesn't have to make sense to us because we're women."

"That's just typical female logic."

We both turned to see Miroku entering the bedroom, approaching us by the window. Sango immediately grew hostile. "That's just like a man to say that."

Battle of the canines downstairs, battle of the sexes upstairs. There was no getting away from it… I just had to roll my eyes and silently cheer Kouga on, hoping that perhaps he would gouge out an eye or two.

"I have my own theory about the reason why Inuyasha is defending Lady Kagome's hand." The Monk said over my shoulder.

"Oh yes? And what would that be?" I was open to suggestions.

"He's jealous."

Me and Sango snorted with laughter at that one. But when Miroku failed to laugh along with us, we sobered slightly, "Excuse me?" I narrowed my eyes at him.

"Inuyasha is merely jealous. Sometimes the simplest reason is the true one." Miroku smiled slightly. "Just now while I was down there I heard Inuyasha professing that he would not allow your pure hand to fall into Kouga's unworthy one. He says he would fight… for love."

I laughed again… but this time Sango didn't join me. I shut up at once and nudged her. "Hey!" What was with the thoughtful expression on her face?

"Maybe he's right." Sango said slowly. "I mean… from what I've heard from Lady Jun, he's always been a bit quick to respond to jealousy." She glanced at Miroku. "Didn't you say he beat up one of the servants last year for pinching her bottom?"

"Indeed." Miroku nodded gravely.

"He did that?!" I pointed at Inuyasha. "Oh my god… that poor man."

"That 'poor man' _did _assault you." Sango pointed out.

"Yeah… but still…" I kinda felt a little sorry for him. One day he'd pinched my rear and then the next he was being carted off to Kikyo for urgent medical treatment. Inuyasha had said that he'd fallen down the stairs.

Miroku carried on. "But doesn't that prove the extent of his protectiveness of you?" he asked me, though it didn't really strike me as a question. "He feels so strongly about you that he is willing to fight to the death to keep you."

We all turned as a few explicates echoed up from the courtyard. "That was below the belt **Be-low the belt!**"

"You can't be serious…" I ran a hand over my forehead. "Inuyasha doesn't 'fight for love' he fights so he can blame his injuries on me!"

Miroku just gave an allusive shrug. "That's just Inuyasha psychology. We're not meant to understand it because we're sane."

__

~Inuyasha~

"This is all your fault." I told Kagome later that afternoon. She just rolled her eyes slightly and went on dabbing the damp wash cloth against the tear marks on my upper arm. "If you hadn't flirted with him – he wouldn't be making stupid proposals and I wouldn't be having to fight him!"

"You know, you could have just let him have me!" She pressed a little harder on the wound, making me hiss. "Then you wouldn't have troubled yourself with me!"

"Did you _want _to go with him?" I snapped.

"That's not the point!" She said angrily. "If it bothers you so much to defend my honour then don't bother doing it – I could get someone else to do it!"

"Yeah, someone you chatted up a few minute before hand."

"Not this again." She breathed angrily. She refused to speak after that, keeping her lips firmly shut and concentrated on the task of dressing my wounds. She was only doing this because her mother had told her to and my father wouldn't let anyone else touch me. It grated on my nerves…

"Any pain when I do this?" I squeezed his wrist.

"No." he answered sullenly.

"Any tingly sensations down your arms?"

"No."

"Any gigantic pains in the ass?"

"Only you."

"Any reason why I should be talking to you at all?" She quite deliberately pressed against a hidden wound on my chest. "Does it hurt when I do that?" She did it again just to demonstrate,

"Knock it off, bitch!" I slapped her hands away angrily. "That hurts!"

"Well then you shouldn't have gotten into a fight!" she shouted back. "It's stupid and dangerous! What if he'd really hurt you?!"

It surprised me that she had been worried about me, not about Kouga. I guess that meant that she really hadn't wanted to go with him… "Nothing can hurt me." I scoffed. "I'm much tougher than someone like you who would bawl like a baby the first time she got hit!"

"What if _I _really hurt you?" she raised her fist warningly. Like _that _would ever scare me.

"I hope you learned a valuable lesson from this." I said seriously.

"What, me?! It's you who should have learned from-"

"To not got flirting with me – it only gets people hurt!" I interrupted bluntly. "From this day on – I will not permit you to speak with any other men, you're _my _fiancée and I will not have you go around sharing yourself with others!"

She glared at me, a deep quiet rage smouldering beneath the surface. Her hands shook with anger and I could see that she was struggling to contain whatever she was dying to say to me. In the end she lost the battle. 

"**You conceited _bastard!_**" she all but screamed in my face. "I am not your possession to govern – and you are _not _my husband and you cannot decide who I should and shouldn't talk to!"

"Then stop flirting!"

"I do not flirt!" she yelled back. "What you think of as flirting is polite conversation – you wouldn't know about that because you've never been polite to anyone in your life except for Kikyo! So am I right in assuming that you must be flirting with Kikyo?!"

"No!"

"Then what gives?" she stood abruptly. "I don't have to sit here and take this – I will talk to whoever I want and you can't stop me! If you try to I will set my mother on you because as far as I am concerned, until we make our vows I will _not _be controlled by you! And I would rather die before I ever make a vow of faithfulness to _you_!"

"You'll only get more people hurt if you continue to be unfaithful now!" I shot back, getting to my feet as well so she wouldn't be looking down her nose at me. Now she had to crane her neck back to look me fiercely in the eye – I liked it better that way. "What kind of person do you want to come across as if you cheat constantly!"

"I've never cheated anyone in my life!" she sounded outraged. "And you're only saying that because you're jealous."

That last one had me floored. I gaped at her in horror for several seconds before I found my voice again, and to my further horror it was high and petrified. "_What?!_"

"You heard me!" she took a step towards me, making me step back quickly to avoid any contact between us. My foot knocked the water basin over behind me. I looked down at the spreading water but Kagome continued to rant. "The only reason you picked the fight with Kouga was because you were jealous of me, wasn't it?! Admit it! You can't stand the thought of me being with someone else! You were willing to fight for me to stay with you because that's how you like things! You were jealous!"

My feet were wet, my body ached from the fight, my head was spinning with accusations flying around – but I caught the gist of what she was saying. "I was _fighting _because me and Kouga are enemies! It had nothing to do with you!"

"Tell that to somehow who cares!" she yelled as she turned quickly, whipping me painfully in the face with her hair. I caught a hint of wildflower scent. "I'm going to go see my mother about this," she stomped out of the room without a backward glance.

"Bitch…" I muttered venomously under my breath. She hadn't acted grateful at all that I had saved her from a disastrous fate with Kouga. All she cared about was messing with my head. Still… it was her fault that I was injured now and her fault further still that I hadn't been cleaned up properly.

"Need any help?"

I glanced up to see Miroku in the doorway. He'd been a bit of a trouble maker recently and I regarded him suspiciously. "No thanks, I'm fine." But he obviously wanted to talk to me since even that wouldn't deter him.

He came forward into the room. "They might get infected if not treated properly." He pointed out. I just rolled my eyes, but I didn't protest when he picked up the bandages and made me sit down on a dry part of the floor so he could patch me up. "I had an interesting conversation with Lady Kagome earlier." He said.

His conversations with women were always interesting…

"She said that she was very flattered that you were fighting for her honour."

"Really?" I gave him a sideways look. "She seemed pretty nasty about it if you ask me."

"Oh no, that's only because she was worried about you. She didn't want to go with Kouga, but she was going insane with worry for your safety." Miroku told me seriously.

Well… she had expressed a little concern for me a moment ago. But I still was disinclined to believe it. "You're still spewing rubbish, monk."

"Then why did you bother fighting for her?" Miroku asked easily, but with a sharpness on the edge of his voice that had my hackles raising slightly.

"I was fighting for myself – Kouga pisses me off!"

"So that fact that you were jealous because perhaps lady Kagome preferred Kouga to you had nothing to do with it?" he asked casually as he wrapped the strip of cloth around the gouges in my arm.

"Nothing whatsoever."

"So you admit you were jealous at all?" Miroku gave me a small smile and I realised I'd walked into that one a little too easily. 

I jerked my arm away from him and stood up. "You're just putting words in my mouth!" I snapped and tried to storm away… but his words made me hesitate slightly.

"You can lie to me Inuyasha but you can't lie to yourself. How do you really feel about her?"

I stomped out angrily.

There was a time when I would have been really certain of the answer to that question. No. I didn't like Kagome. She pissed me off and had made every Autumn for the past ten years a miserable season to endure. And was due to make to the rest of my life very, very miserable if I was going to have to marry her. If she'd been some other Princess I may have just sent her away once we were married so that I'd never have to look at her again… but Kagome was more wilful than that. There was no doubt in my mind that she would be a thorn in my side till the day either one of us died.

But now I wasn't so sure of the answer to that question. How did I really feel about her? I admit at least to myself that I admired her in a way. She was strong, irrepressible by nature and… and perhaps she wasn't _that _bad looking. She was definitely going to be a wife to be proud of, but at the same time she made me uneasy. Sometimes she was too irrepressible and strong-minded. Sometimes the friction between us was too strong, and sometimes I realised that perhaps we were too similar to get along in the long run.

There were times when I realised she knew me better than I knew myself, a habit that came from being around each other for so long. That was usually irritating… but what if it held a deeper meaning?

And what if Miroku _was _telling the truth, however unlikely it was? Kagome did seem to be a little different this year and she did seem to be looking at me a lot more than usual and getting flustered every now and then when I was half pleasant to her. 

Perhaps things could change…?

I laughed it off… or more like laughed and then broke off coughing thanks to a well placed punch that Kouga had landed on my chest. Sadly, I hadn't won that fight, more like we had both mutually given up and Kouga had gone back to his tribe and I had gone back into the castle. I was sure there would be a next time. That would be a tradition that never changed.

But whilst some things remained the same, other things _did _change and since I'd disregarded Miroku's advice and had laughed it all off… it hit me when I was most unprepared for it…

AN: Hopefully I'll update before I leave, if not – see you when I get back ^_^


	6. What Not to Say

**Author's Notes**: Right, back on with Autumn Bane!

**Autumn Bane**

**Chapter 6**

**What Not to Say**

_~Kagome~_

"I think I have a plan that will save me from marrying Inuyasha." I told Sango as I helped her repair my torn kimono from the little misadventure I'd had in the forest yesterday.

"And what new plan is it this time?" Sango was used to hearing them. They were often harebrained and stupid, but at least they were entertaining.

"What I could do is this: Take a little trip to another nearby country and basically help them build their defences, army and land up so that they become more influential than Toshiyama."

Sango gave me a piercing look. "Uh huh."

"And then what I'll do is put a really handsome, kind, well-meaning man in charge of the country and then my mother will want me to marry this wonderful man of my own creation rather than Inuyasha."

"Could you do all this by the end of the season?" Sango asked, trying to look serious for my benefit.

"Of course. Though I might find it difficult to find a _good _man to put in charge," I paused my sewing to tap my chin thoughtfully. "Perhaps I'll just run away instead."

"I think you're looking at the bottle half-empty." Sango told me as she eyed her work. "You think that marrying Inuyasha will be a disaster-"

"Show me proof that it would be otherwise-"

"You're taking for granted the fact that you will probably be the richest, safest woman in the entire land when you marry him. If he just happens to pass away, bless his soul - and no I'm not suggesting you kill him, so don't look at me like that - I'm just saying that if he dies of old age or otherwise you will be owner of all Toshiyama _and _your mother's country combined together. You'll be the most powerful woman ever."

I really hadn't thought of it like that.

"Yes, but he's a Hanyou, isn't he?" I pointed out. "Hanyou's aren't exactly as fragile as mice - Inuyasha will probably outlive me and I'll just be the wife that he keeps under the stairs when he doesn't need me - which will be as long as I live." He'd made his feelings very clear yesterday on that matter when he'd told me that I was supposed to be some faithful little pet that he would cage up the minute we made our vows. I'd been smouldering about it all night and I hadn't even looked at him when he'd come to bed – I still had yet to lay eyes on him. I was going to hold this grudge as long as I could keep it up… he was the last person in the world I would submit to and I would _not _be controlled like any other token wife.

"Perhaps when you marry and you'll be left in peace by your parents, you may discover you can grow to like him… maybe even love him?" Sango looked up at me with a smile.

I snorted. "That will be the day blue roses sprout from my hair."

Sango shrugged. "You're too negative towards each other. Sometimes I can't help but feel that you two would have grown closer if your parents hadn't pushed as hard as they had."

"We'd be more distant than ever!" I admonished. "I'd never bother to even visit him if I didn't have to."

"Well then, this is going to kill you…" Sango sounded amused.

"What is?"

"Your mother told me to tell that you that she wants you to go bathe Inuyasha after you've fixed your kimono."

"Do what?!" I hissed, dropping my clothes in surprise. "I can't do that!"

"Apparently, she was very annoyed yesterday when you abandoned him to tend to his own wounds - and you know what men are like - they'll pretend they're fine till they get struck down by infection. I know Inuyasha is an exception, but Lady Jun is still annoyed that you neglected your duty to him!"

"He kept telling me to stop flirting; I had no choice!" I said defensively. "You try sitting there and taking that kind of degrading lecture."

"You have to be strong, Kagome." Sango reminded me. "You have to bear your duty as a Princess."

"Right now I would rather be a simpleton and be able to marry whoever I want." I sighed in frustration as I laid a stitch in the wrong place and began to un-pick the ruined work. "When I marry, I want it to be for love, and if I can't do that then I won't marry anyone at all."

Sango was watching me with a secretive sort of smile. "And what if you learn to love Inuyasha?"

I picked at my stitching sullenly for a moment before answering honestly. "If I did love him,  I would marry him… but I don't see that possibility coming."

"And what if he loves you?"

"If he loved me then maybe… maybe I would marry him then as well, as long as I knew he would take care of me properly. But again, I don't see him falling in love with me any time soon." I looked up to see her practically grinning. "What are you so happy about?"

"Nothing, nothing." She shrugged and stopped smiling with a bit of effort. "Look, you're making a sow's ear of that, let me finish here and you go tend to Inuyasha."

A cold chill ran up my spine. But I knew that the best way to get it over with was to just do it and try and etch it out of my memory for good. With a loud sigh, I dropped the kimono back into the pile for Sango and waved her a miserable goodbye before heading out the door.

The bath house was a separate building from the castle, located towards the edge of the compound. I dragged my feet all the way there, through the mud and the slime and all sorts of unspeakable stuff that the servants chucked out of their windows by the bucketful. The Lord's advisor, Naraku, was overseeing something going on in one of the workshops near the servants quarters. I  tried to ignore the way he stared at me as I made my way to the bath house. Sometimes I could really curse the luck I'd been graced with to share Kikyo's appearance. Sometimes I could just curse Kikyo period.

_~Inuyasha~_

I think he'd finally gone and done it. He'd wrecked my mind, and I was so confused that I was having trouble getting through the morning. What Miroku said was beginning to make sense…

Was I jealous yesterday? So jealous that Kouga's sudden declaration of love for Kagome had gotten me riled enough to fight him in the middle of the castle courtyard in front of everyone? Was Kagome too precious to me to lose?

Everything in my conscious mind was shouting "NO!" in a big, emphatic way… but I couldn't help but wonder. She'd been concerned for my safety, and already I was beginning to remember times when she'd gone soft on me… said kind words that I hadn't noticed until now. Yes, she got mad at me easily, but what if she really did care about me?

So… so… confused…

I sank down into the hot water up to my nose and dejectedly began blowing bubbles while strange new ideas and thoughts bombarded me. While I sat there wondering if there was any cure for idiocy, the bath house door opened. I glanced up absently to see who it was, expecting to find a servant with more heated water or some scented herbs… yet instead I saw my fiancée.

My first instinct was to scream, high and girly. I nearly sank even further into the water in my shock at seeing her, but it was only a matter of seconds before my good old, reliable temper surfaced. I sat up like a shot, pretending that my red face was due to my anger and nothing else. "MY bath time! Out!"

I noticed that her cheeks were tinged slightly pink as she steadied her gaze on my face. "My mother wants me to bathe you."

"I can manage perfectly well on my own." I snapped with complete feeling and honestly. I figured I could manage washing myself; after all, I had been doing it since I was old enough to splash the servants who tried to do exactly what Kagome was trying to do now.

Kagome just folded her arms and turned her face towards the wooden panelled wall. "I promise I won't look."

"I don't care about that." I said quickly, perhaps a little too quickly to sound believable. "I just like to bath alone, ok?"

"If you don't let me bathe you, my mother will be angry with me-"

"Good."

"-and you."

Not so good. "I don't care."  Though I admit, she was getting me a little worried.

She glanced back at me in a rejected sort of way… in fact, I think she almost looked a little hurt. "I'm sorry," she said as if suddenly weary. "You really don't want to be bothered, so I'll just leave."

Ouch. "No, it's ok." Hang on… what was I saying? "You can stay if you're that desperate."

"Well I wouldn't quite put it like that." she said testily.

"I mean, if it's crazy Lady Jun's orders, you can stay… if you really want to." I kept adding those little assurances… 'if you really want to' 'if you're that desperate'… I think I was beginning to sound insecure. Actually, I was pretty sure I was _feeling _insecure about wanting her to stay… I wasn't sure if I really did want her here or if I wanted her gone.

Still… so… so… confused…

I think maybe I didn't want to upset her too much if she really was in love with me, as Miroku kept telling me.

Kagome coughed slightly, clearing her throat. "Alright then." she said in a no-nonsense way… but she failed to move from her spot by the door. Even I had to roll my eyes at her nervousness. "You can come a bit closer if you want."

"I-I don't want to see anything I shouldn't." she stammered. It was quite cute, really. My normal cruel streak inwardly smirked at her.

"Don't worry. The water's perfectly cloudy."

That seemed to reassure her a little and she regained a bit more of her normal confidence. "Probably from all that dirt you collect over the month."

"Stop trying to charm me and get it done already." I snapped and watched her pick her way across the room to kneel on the floor just behind me. 

_Well this is a new experience_, I thought as she picked up the wash cloth and dipped it into the water beside my arm. I almost flinched when she hesitantly, but carefully shifted my hair into a loose weave to ring out the water and place it over my shoulder, out of the way. There was a strange gentleness to this girl that I think I liked to overlook most of the time. She was normally so fierce with me that I just didn't notice how she could be quite the opposite at times… like now…

"It's amazing how fast Hanyous heal." she commented, her breath close to my ear and making it flick automatically as a small shiver ran down my spine. Unseen to her, I closed my eyes and clenched my claws into the wooden rim of the tub, gouging marks in it.

"Not really." I managed in a relatively casual voice. "I just think you humans heal too slowly."

 "Maybe you're right."

No argument? No 'you hanyous heal too fast' comeback? What was the matter with her?

What was the matter with _me?_ My hands were trembling ever so slightly and if I wasn't already sitting down, my knees would have buckled when her hair swept gently across my shoulder.

Let's just say I was incredibly grateful that the water was cloudy…

"I've been thinking…" Kagome suddenly began softly.

"Uh huh…" I was too busy visualising the many interesting ways I could dismember Miroku to pay attention to her voice.

"What I said yesterday… about you being a selfish and conceited bastard…"

My ears perked and my eyes opened slightly. "What of it?" I couldn't keep the sharp edge from my tone.

Her hand hesitated against my back, but after a moment she continued washing. "Well, like I said, I've been thinking and talking with Sango and Miroku… maybe I was a little unsympathetic to you yesterday. I mean, there you were defending my honour and I just blew up at you for it. Sorry."

She meant it… which surprised me. I made a show of rolling my eyes. "It's not like you upset me or anything."

"Right." She clicked her tongue.

Was that sarcasm?

"But just so you know, I never had any intention of leaving with Kouga." she told me in a firm tone. I just rolled my eyes. 

That still hadn't prevented her from getting all physical and cosy with him. She may not call it flirting, but it was definitely _something_. Young girls weren't supposed to giggle and bat their eyelashes at every guy who planned to make moves on them - that was the kind of girl they called a slut.

But perhaps she'd only inherited sluttish tendencies from her mother… but I didn't dare mention that as I knew I would probably have my ears twisted off in compensation. Oh, and I suppose it wouldn't be very nice of me…

"Say, Kagome…" I turned suddenly, and quickly found myself nose to nose with the princess. I completely forgot what I was supposed to say at that point… I was too caught up in the fact that her eyes were rather dilated.

Either she was drunk or she had the hots for me.

Think fast! What the hell was I supposed to say now?!

"Um… Kagome-hime…?" Why was I adding her suffix now? "Could you just… leave now? I think I can bathe myself and you've already stayed enough to satisfy your mother." _Oh, and I want to drown myself repeatedly till I get brain damage and forget all the weird thoughts I'm having about you._

Kagome seemed to be having a few weird thoughts of her own as she drew back slowly with a frown and a becoming pink tinge to her cheeks - wait - 'becoming'? What had I been drinking…?

"Oh… ok…" She didn't seem too upset at being politely kicked out, but simply wiped her hands on the skirts of her kimono and got to her feet. "See you at lunch, Inuyasha-sama." She returned my earlier formality as she stepped out of the wash room without a backwards glance.

I sank back into the cooling water with a groan and simply blew more depressed bubbles till my fingers began to prune.

_~Kagome~_

Something strange was going on. Normally, interrupting Inuyasha while taking his bath would have resulted in some kind of tidal wave and a few unconscious princesses. But this time, he hadn't done much more than turn red and get tongue-tied…

Very odd behaviour…

I remember the last time we'd actually bathed together - when I was six and he was seven. Of course, at that age there really wasn't much to set the girls apart from the boys, but even now I couldn't help but blush at what bathing together would insinuate nowadays. When I was six, it had been one big excuse to push his stupid, little head underwater and a whole heap of laughs for Inuyasha when he shook himself like a dog and got me soaked after having carefully dried myself. If we were to bathe like that again this Autumn, I doubt there would be much fighting, touching, talking - more like we'd be plastered to opposite ends of the tub looking at anything and everything that wasn't each other.

Well, it was good to know that there would be at least one scenario where me and Inuyasha wouldn't verbally abuse each other when left alone for more than five minutes.

"Lady Kagome!"

I stopped and looked behind me with a little apprehension. Miroku was approaching, accompanied by his usual jovial mood and I just _knew _that he was going to harass me about the bathing incident that had just taken place. So I kept walking down the corridor, heading for my chambers where I would be able to take a nap or talk to Sango… but I also knew that Miroku would corner me before I got that far.

"I've been looking for you," he said as he drew up beside me. "Where have you been?"

Like he didn't already know. "Bathing Inuyasha."

"Without a chaperone?" He sounded alarmed.

"Without a chaperone." I confirmed. "But you know as well as anybody else that there was not a chance of anything happening between us, so don't act so scandalised."

"Actually…" He gained this uncertain tone of voice that had me skewing him a suspicious sideways glance. "Considering Inuyasha's feelings towards you, I would be a bit more careful about where you went alone with him if I were you." 

I stopped dead in the corridor. There was no one else around the corridor apart from me and him so no one was about to hear our conversation. I turned and gave him my full attention. "Are you saying Inuyasha would force himself on-"

"No, nothing of the sort." he dismissed me bluntly. "I'm just saying, since Inuyasha has already informed me of his feelings for you, leaving you two alone is perhaps not such a good idea." Miroku tapped his chin thoughtfully. "I'm not entirely sure it would take a lot of convincing on Inuyasha's part to bring you around to the idea once you two were alone…"

My cheeks flamed into action. "Stop right there! There is nothing between Inuyasha and I other than rather hostile intentions, got that?!"

Miroku held up his hands in a gesture of submission. "Got it. There's nothing between you and Inuyasha other than rather sharp daggers."

"Right." I huffed and began walking back towards my room.

"And the occasional desirous look."

I whirled on him ferociously, but he only blinked back innocently as if he'd said nothing at all. "Stop that!" To tell the truth, I felt close to tears. Though I had no idea why…

Some of that innocence left Miroku's face, which was an odd thing to see. "Oh please, Lady Kagome. Don't try and tell me that there is absolutely nothing between you and Inuyasha. I've seen the way you two look at each other. The only reason you _think _you hate each other so is because you're both stuck in a rut. You _must _hate each other, therefore you both seem completely thrown when you both discover that you don't actually hate each other as much as you thought."

Huh?

"I admit, ten years of holding grudges is a lot to forget in one short season." he went on airily. "But trust me, true love is hard to find and you two are both incredible fools if you pass up this chance to discover it together."

My eyes were welling up. "Are you serious…?"

"Deadly so." He nodded gravely.

I tried imagining Inuyasha, picturing him in my head as I always did. Last year, this kind of activity would have induced facial spasms of some sort, and maybe even an imaginary Kagome hacking the imaginary Inuyasha to death. But all I felt now was an overwhelming sense of confusion and hopelessness. I wasn't sure I hated him… but I still wasn't convinced that I was _in love_ with him. I was so used to saying I hated him that it had become second nature. Now that I actually stopped and tried to analyse my feelings, I found that the hate had faded and I was just left puzzled…

What if Miroku was right?

I needed some time alone to think…

"Excuse me… I need to rest my eyes." I smiled weakly at Miroku before starting on my way to the bedroom again. Thankfully, he didn't follow me… as if my head was in enough turmoil as it was.

~_Inuyasha_~

It was bad enough that Miroku was believing it… but it was bordering on devastatingly bad when_ I _was the one beginning to believe it.

As we all sat down to supper that evening, I admit that I was a little too caught up in my own thoughts to really pay attention to what was going on around me. Not surprisingly, it was Kagome who was clogging up my thoughts. I was finding it hard thinking about anything else… all the flustered looks she gave me, the subtle, nervous body language that she'd been using lately - nervousness that she had never possessed in previous years. I had no idea what it meant…

Actually, I did have an idea, but I just didn't want to believe it.

Kagome could not be _in love _with me… could she? Miroku was renowned for his shining dishonesty, but still, I wondered if what he was saying was based on a little truth at least.

I thought back to the first time I'd laid eyes on her this autumn… and I distinctly remember seeing her begin to swoon. She'd covered up by telling me I smelled or something… but what if that was all it had been? A cover-up?

What about the time I tried to help her up after I knocked her down in the forest? She'd blushed and refused to look at me… acting like some shy, little girl when only moments before she'd been intent on bashing me over the head with a tree branch.

Either she was heavily into the neurotic crap this year, or she had feelings for me.

My eyes strayed from the opposite wall long enough to drag over to Kagome's form. In that instant, she looked at me… then immediately we both averted our gazes…

She wasn't the only one who was hot in the face…

"This is getting so old…" Miroku yawned beside me. "She likes you - and you obviously like her - so what on earth are you holding back for?"

I was holding back because I knew I should be hating her! Why couldn't it just be like normal? She insults me, I insult her, we throw a little food around, maybe one or two tantrums, and then in three months we'd go back to our real homes and dread the next Autumn - that's the way it has always been! Why did she have to go and make everything complicated…

No… perhaps the one complicating things here was me. I could just ignore her apparent 'feelings' and treat her like shit for the rest of the season…

But I couldn't bring myself to do that. Why? Because perhaps I was feeling a few of those funny feelings myself…

"Look," Miroku leaned over, having taken my silence as shy reluctance. "Just tell her how you feel."

"No." I said without thinking.

"What do you mean 'no'?" He scowled at me. "If anyone's going to make the first move, it has to be the gentlemen."

"No." I said again, frowning heavily at my untouched supper. "I don't want to make any moves - I don't want things to change!" Change was scary. Change was something I wanted to avoid.

"Maybe things will change for the better?" Miroku reasoned. I threw him a frustrated look, trying to let him know that I wanted him to drop the subject and just eat his damn food. I reckon he just ignored my glare since he's normally very perceptive to such things… "I suggest you get her alone and ask her directly how she feels about you. I bet you'll be pleasantly surprised-"

Urgh… I'd had enough.

With a rather pointed groan, I stood up. Dozens of eyes turned on me, including Kagome's, my father's, and Lady Jun's, but I ignored them all. I wanted time to myself to think, and I wouldn't get that by being harassed endlessly by Miroku and Kagome's confusing glances.

I walked out of supper, not really having any particular destination in mind. Perhaps all I wanted to do was walk? With everyone eating, the corridors were pretty empty…

Even so, I ended up outside, walking towards the herb allotment. I could see Kikyo's form outlined in the dim evening light, stooped over and tending to her plants. Didn't she eat supper with the rest of the castle? I frowned and instinctively headed over to her.

I stopped at the edge of the allotment patch. Kikyo's back was turned to me, but apparently she already knew I was there. "Is something the matter, Inuyasha?" she asked evenly, not even looking up from her work.

"No…" I lied. Kikyo probably didn't want to be burdened with my petty troubles…

"For you to skip supper, it must have been something." She straightened and looked back at me, pushing her hair out of her face with the back of her hand. If I hadn't known better, I would have said that was Kikyo's sense of humour surfacing there. But I knew better… she was just pointing out a fact.

I sighed and let my eyes stray to a lone barrel of apples stacked against the outer wall of her little, wooden house. "Kikyo… is it normal to go from hating someone for ten straight years to… actually liking them? In a… more than 'like' kind of way…?"

Her gaze was steady, but unreadable. I stared back, trying to figure out what she was thinking or what she was about to say.

"You're seventeen, Inuyasha." she said at last, lowering her lashes as she returned her gaze to the herbs at her feet. "You are coming of age and naturally this is a volatile time for your feelings and emotions. What you once felt as hate, you may now perceive as love, and vice versa. It does not mean anything lasting, and in time your emotions will balance out and return to normal… but perhaps you should be careful not to make any promises you won't be able to keep later on?"

I narrowed my eyes. "Meaning…?"

"You think you love Kagome-hime, don't you?" she said in a vaguely frosty tone.

Perhaps 'love' was too strong a word…?

"I don't know…" I answered honestly.

"Then my caution remains." she said flatly, bending down to pluck a few leaves off a nasty looking herb seedling.

That was Kikyo… as illusive and cryptic as always. 

I left her to her herb gathering at that point. She obviously wasn't in the mood to talk and I don't think she was enjoying the topic of conversation, so I headed back to the castle with only the big cosy image of my bed keeping me company. Supper had finished by the time I got back to my room, but I was still the only one there. I sat beneath the window, simply staring at the widening moon as I waited for someone to return.

To my surprise, it was almost half an hour before anyone entered… and even then it was only Kagome. I glanced back at her and noticed how oddly quiet and pale she was. Something was wrong. "What's the matter?" I asked, ever the compassionate soul.

"My mother…" she winced slightly. "Her sickness must have caught up with her… she's got a fever."

Her mother was _dying_. I still couldn't believe that Kagome was probably one of the only people who didn't know about it…

"Sango's looking after her tonight." she went on to say, shifting self-consciously. "And since it's not proper to have a male chaperone alone, I have to stay with my mother as well."

Guess it was just me and myself tonight.

Her gaze met mine and held for a fraction of a moment. I could tell she was worried… but I could also tell that even at a time like this she was still being unusually… weird… around me. To tell you the truth, I was getting a little tired of it. I was beginning to long for the heated arguments that we had shared only a day so ago… I lived off our passionate disputes - and it was only at that very moment that I realised it. I didn't want a mouse for a wife; I wanted a spirited, sharp-tongued young woman who wouldn't let me turn into a mushy mess like my father.

This realisation hit me hard like a punch in the gut. I was still a little winded in my shock so I barely noticed Kagome beginning to leave. "Wait!" I called out, scrambling to my feet.

She stopped and looked back at me expectantly.

But I think 'wait' was all I had in me. What was I supposed to say now? I wanted to say something profound and meaningful that would get us back on the right track. Ever since she had come to help me bathe, there had been something unsettling between us – and I wanted it gone, whatever it was. I didn't care how I would go about doing it, but I didn't want us to be scared of each other…

So I blurted out the first thing that ran through my pea-sized brain.

"I think I'm falling in love with you."

She blinked.

I blinked.

Well, that came out wrong….

AN: That's all for now. ^__^


	7. Turnabout After Unfair Play

**Author****'****s Notes: **Ok, I have just under a week to spend on this story, considering I will be having to start packing soon for yet another holiday (sort of)… and yes, I have noticed that only two chapters ago I was announcing my trip to Madeira and no sooner have I started on the story again then I'm off to America straight away. 

But this really isn't going to be a pleasure trip since I'm going with my cousin and her mother to look after my slightly senile grandmother to help her prepare to move back to England. But since the old woman has missed out on a lot of my life (being that she fled across the ocean the very week I was born) she plans to take me to all the cool kiddie places like the zoo ^__^;; so if you see a girl with a rather improbable shade of short red hair playing with/getting mauled by the tigers in a zoo in Arizona… that will be me. 

**Autumn Bane**

**Chapter 7**

**Turnabout After Unfair Play**

_~Kagome~_

Time literally seemed to stop. I blinked at him and he blinked at me.

That declaration had sounded awfully profound and meaningful… and it only confirmed what Miroku had been whispering into my ear for a while now. So the monk had been telling the truth… Did that make my feelings for Inuyasha real too? 

I wasn't ready to confront this…

"Ok then…" I darted my gaze to the floor and backed towards the door again. "I really need to go to my mother now. Bye."

With that parting sentiment, I literally fled. I ran down the halls - heading blindly for my mother's room - but my mind was on more important matters than my mother's cold.

He was falling in love with me? Since when? Was he being truthful or was he just out to play with my feelings? What if this was just some nasty prank he had cooked up with Miroku?

No… no, that couldn't be it. I'd seen the look in his eyes. I could always tell when he was being untruthful because he always had a conceited glint in his eyes… but this time, he had looked about as honest and innocent as your average teenage boy. He had looked at me the same way one of the servants - Hojo - had looked at me. The boy had said he was in love with me with that open, beautifully earnest face – but he was a servant and I was a princess… besides, I hadn't really noticed him until he'd spoken of his feelings. At that point, my mother had found out and he was sent away. She'd said the only one deserving of my feelings was Inuyasha…

Which brought me back to the dog-eared hanyou in question…

_He__'__s not supposed to like me - we__'__re supposed to hate each other! _I mentally cried in anguish as I reached the screen door behind which my mother rested. I didn't enter. I had tears streaked down my face and I knew she would question me endlessly about them.

I took a moment to catch my breath and dry my face… but my heart still hurt, although I knew I didn't have a reason for it to do so. Inuyasha had said he had feelings for me… why would that induce heartache? 

Maybe because I already knew that I was probably falling in love with him as well… and had been since the first moment I'd seen him this Autumn and swooned at the mere sight.

I sighed and blinked hot eyes for a few extra seconds to make sure my eyes were completely dry. Then I entered with a smile and a sigh. 

"Good evening, Mother." I said pleasantly.

All I got was a cough and a muttered expletive about overly optimistic daughters in response. Sango smiled up at me from where she was tending a damp cloth over my mother's forehead. 

It was going to be a long night….

_~Inuyasha~_

It was going to be one fuck of a long night.

_I didn__'__t say that! I didn__'__t say that! I didn__'__t say that! Dear god I did say that! Oh fuck! Oh damn! Oh shit! I__'__m so screwed! I didn__'__t say that! I didn__'__t say that!_

That was basically my line of thought for the rest of night. I still couldn't believe I'd actually let those words slip past my lips! Damn Miroku and all his meddling… I had to wonder if Kagome even felt remotely the same way. What if Miroku was just playing a cruel trick on me and planting all these ideas and feelings into my head after that jibe I'd made about him having a chance with Sango only when I was willing to marry Kagome? What if she still hated me and I'd just made a complete fool out of myself?

A horrible, gnawing anxiety clawed at my belly, refusing to let me get a wink of sleep. I was too scared. What had I done? What was I going to do now? How on earth was I ever going to face Kagome again?

Maybe I should runaway to a distant land and become a hermit on a hillside? That would spare me from ever having to look at her again and it would keep him from having to marry her.

Yes. Maybe I did have feelings for her - but that still didn't mean I wanted to tie my life down with hers while I still had so much living to do first!

Not that she'd ever want to marry me… she's probably laughing about me with Sango this very minute. I'm such an idiot… how could I have made this kind of mistake?

It seemed like a long night, mainly because I was dreading sunrise and all the complications it would bring. I'd have to have breakfast with her and what was I supposed to say then?

But by the time the first light had broken over the outer boundary wall of the castle, I had decided that I would play it off as a joke. Kagome clearly was confused by my feelings - obviously she didn't return them. So I would go to her tomorrow and laugh it off - say that the expression on her face had been priceless and so on - the classic things that accompany my twisted sense of humour.

I was all psyched up and ready to go. Which was why I felt so disappointed when I arrived at breakfast to find she wasn't there.

"She's taking care of her mother still." Miroku said while he blew on his breakfast brew. He evidently hadn't heard about my confession last night; otherwise, I wouldn't have heard the end of it. "Something you want to talk to her about?" He raised his eyebrows suggestively. He meant my feelings, of course.

Too late, pal, I already talked about that.

"No, I just want her to return something of mine." Yeah, my _dignity_.

Well, at least I was reassured. If Miroku didn't know that I'd blabbed something stupid last night, then nobody knew. Either Kagome hadn't had the chance to spread the word, or perhaps she didn't plan to…

But I really needed to find her and put an end to the matter as quickly as possible. There was only so much pent-up tension one guy can take…

_~Kagome~_

I admit… I was avoiding Inuyasha. I didn't know how to deal with him and I was too chicken to face the possibility that what he'd said might have been a joke at my expense. I was seriously beginning to entertain my plan to leave Toshiyama and Inuyasha for another country and another warlord of my own design… but we all knew that men would fly to the moon before I ever accomplished _that _particular task.

I skipped breakfast in favour of looking after my mother, who only liked to hiss at my careful attentions. It made me sigh, but she was always particularly grumpy when she was ill. I longed for her to get better… but at the same time, I hoped she stayed ill – then I would be able to avoid Inuyasha for a little bit longer.

Eventually, however, I got bored of my mother's contempt for my affection so I left her in Sango's capable hands to get some fresh air… and hoped that Inuyasha and I wouldn't cross paths.

I did see a couple of people on my way around the compound. Kikyo was handing a small paper slip of medicinal herbs to some servants outside her hut. She saw me walking past but ignored me without the grace of a second glance. Miroku was making some lame attempts to chat up some teenage groupies… and largely succeeding by the flustered giggles they were emitting.

The blacksmith was still making that sword that I had noticed the other day when I'd asked for directions.

Curiosity got the better of me, and in my need for pleasant human conversation I went over to his bench and anvil. "What are you making?" I asked politely when I was close enough to be heard.

"A sword for his highness." The old man answered. Now that I could see him properly I realised he was actually demon… the slightly curved, yet pointy ears gave him away. Not surprising… I doubted anyone human got have such mastery of metal and weapons. The collection behind him was wonderful - better than anything I had ever seen anyone in my country possess.

"For Lord Inu?" I prodded.

"His son." He made a sucking sound through his teeth. "And with such a mighty blockhead as him, I have been told to make this sword idiot proof."

I smiled despite myself.

"Dropped his last sword down a well, the fool." he went on. "So this one shall be able to be called upon in a time of need… as long the sheath stays in the boy's hands."

"That's clever." I exclaimed. A magic sword. That was pretty impressive…

"It shall be able to slay armies in one swing." the black smith said proudly, and right then I realised he would probably have a tough time parting with it.

"Is it wise to give something that powerful to such an idiot?" I wondered aloud.

"Only youkai armies, my lady." he corrected me. "This sword is deigned only to destroy youkai so long as it is in service of the needy, innocent or human…"

Wow. How patronising. Seeing has how Inuyasha only ever thought of himself, I reckoned that he'd never be able to use that sword. Oh well. Too bad for him…

"I won't keep you from your work." I sidled away at last, in search of something less Inuyasha-orientated to do. But fate had other ideas for me.

"Inuyasha was looking for you this morning."

 Miroku again. He suddenly appeared out of thin air at my side. He did that so often that I had to wonder if he was part ghost or something. But now he wanted to talk about Inuyasha, and that was the last thing I wanted to discuss with anybody… I wondered if Inuyasha had already told him about the _thing _he'd said last night… "Was he?" I feigned disinterest.

"Said he wanted something back off you." Miroku gave a shrug. "I have no idea what he meant."

"Me neither." Maybe he wanted his dignity back? But that was only if he actually _meant _what he'd said…

Some of my brooding must have shown on my face, and as Miroku seemed to be watching me very closely, he noticed it. "Lady Kagome… I've been thinking. You care for Inuyasha, don't you?"

I pouted slightly before screwing my face up and throwing my hands down to my sides in a huff. "Ok! Yes! I care about him! Now what are you going to do about it?!"

Miroku, for his part, looked delighted. "Perhaps you should tell him how you feel?" he suggested, still grinning. "It is obviously something you want off your chest."

Yes, it was definitely something I wanted out of my system… but I wasn't sure that expressing it to Inuyasha was the right way to go. What if that meant commitment? What if that led to marriage? I didn't want to marry and lose all my money and inheritance to someone else. I didn't want be some dolled up wife that was hidden away at all times and did nothing but make clothes and flower arrangements all day.

"I don't know…" I glanced up at Miroku earnestly. "I mean, he's already told me how he feels about me so-"

"Really?" This news seemed to shock him. "What did he say exactly?"

I blinked. "That he was falling in love with me."

"Ah yes… well he is, you know."

Perhaps it hadn't been a joke after all…? If the news had shocked Miroku then obviously they hadn't been collaborating together… unless Miroku was just acting.

"Yes, but what do I say to him now?" I demanded. "I don't know what to do!"

"Tell him how you feel." he urged.

"If I do that, things will have to change and I don't want them to change!" I folded my arms. "I want things to stay the same. I don't want to marry _anyone_. Not right now at least… even if I _did_ love them."

"I see your point of view…" He stroked his chin whilst doing his 'wise man' impression.

"What if this is just a crush?" I asked. "A fleeting feeling that will fade in a matter of days. My mother talks about it all the time… what if it isn't love?"

"First of all, it is unwise to question the origins of our emotions. We should just live them out and enjoy them while they last. Second of all," Here he looked at the castle. "Inuyasha once made a bet with me concerning marriage… and I have a few things I'd like to discuss with Lady Sango."

"Oh." I shrugged. "She's looking after my mother. You'll be lucky to drag her away."

"I shall try nonetheless." He smiled and waved as he bade goodbye.

By this point, I had been wandering around outside for quite a while under the sun, and I knew that princesses shouldn't get too much sun. Otherwise, they ran the risk of losing that moon glow colour of the skin. I had already lost a little of my customary paleness (much to my mother's insistent horror), but I still had time to regain it. Heading indoors away from the tanning sun was probably a good idea.

But instead I sat down in all my pristine kimonos on the steps leading up to the castle's entrance and gave a big sigh. I wasn't a very good princess… I stayed outdoors too much, ruined too many garments and my hair was too short. I was allergic to make-up, so wearing anything beyond a little eye gloss was out of the question… which meant my wedding was due to be a bit of a sorry sight. All brides wore make-up to the extreme on that day… but if _I _couldn't, would anyone be able to tell me apart from the guests? I had always hoped not… then maybe Inuyasha would marry Kikyo by mistake.

Of course, this line of thought only confirmed the fact that I had actually resigned myself to the reality that one day I was going to marry Inuyasha… I just hoped to put off the wedding day for as long as humanly possible.

Yes, I was still a poor excuse for a princess… to not want to marry her prince. I also wasn't exactly pure…

I'd already given my first real kiss away. When I was eight years old, in fact.

And who had been the lucky recipient?

Inuyasha.

That one had quite a story behind it… not that I'd told anyone and I doubt Inuyasha actually remembered. 

It was really quite stupid, now that I sat down and recalled it properly… basically it had been during one of our 'arrangements'. We'd both been assigned to go down to the wildflower meadow beyond the gnarled oak tree to pick as many flowers as possible for my mother and my old maid to arrange later on. Of course, we just _had _to go together. After nearly an hour of deliberately trying to lose each other, or just plain kill each other with tree branches, we found the meadow and got to work.

Something about the flowers must have reminded me about something I had seen earlier that very day - when one of my mother's female servants had stolen a kiss from one of Lord Inu's samurai. I wasn't a complete naïve fool at that point. I knew what kisses were and I knew what love was and that people who married often kissed - usually to make babies. Of course when I asked for my mother to elaborate on that process, she usually only said that I was too young to understand and too young to make babies so I shouldn't trouble myself with them…

Actually, I'm still not at all sure about the entire process of making babies. But asking my mother again would be close to taking my life in my hands. 

But there's one thing I know now - and that is you have to do more than kiss to make children… just don't ask me what it is because I have no idea. Although, when I was eight I had been told that my mother's female servant was pregnant, therefore I had decided that it was because she had kissed said samurai.

So while I'd been picking flowers, I'd turned to Inuyasha and said "If we're going to marry one day, are we supposed to kiss?"

He had stopped picking his weeds and poisonous fox glove to wrinkle his nose at me. "We're not getting married."

"Yes, we are."

"No, we're not."

"Mother says we are. So there." I had sniffed. Back then, my idea of marriage had been flippant. After all, my mother had bumped off my 'father' only two years before hand, so I thought that a wedding was a reasonable arrangement since I always had a fallback if I ever got tired of my husband. "Then we have to kiss."

I remember seeing him visibly stiffen at the mere thought of kissing. "That's gross! What about germs?! What about babies?!"

Obviously he had deducted the same conclusion as me. 

"When we're married, we're supposed to have babies!" I huffed. He really could be infuriatingly slow sometimes. But he'd only pulled another face and continued picking his ugly weeds.

"I wonder what it's like." I had mused aloud.

"What what's like?"

"Kissing." I whirled on him, hands clasped behind my back along with the flowers I had gathered so far. "Let's try it!"

"No!" he had barked at me.

"It's only practising!" I had whined. "Don't be such a spoil sport!"

"I don't want to!"

Right then, I had marched up to grab him by the front of his shirt and lever him towards me. He had been a year older at that particular moment in time, but he was only just about beginning to catch up with me in terms of height. I was still taller, and as a result I could still bully him around. He was still coming to grips with his own strength and probably hadn't realised that he could overpower me any time he really wanted. "You kiss me right now or I'll scream in your ear!"

"Make me!" he'd growled.

"Oh, come on!" I had let him go and given him my pleading look. "I'll give you my pudding if you do it."

Bribery often worked with small minded boys. His ears had twitched. "All of it?"

"Yup." I had bobbed on the balls of my feet. "All of it."

He had picked at the pink flowers of his fox glove. "Alright…" he'd mumbled eventually. "But only if you give me the pudding!"

"Ok!" I'd piped and skipped forward.

Then with a flourish, I had lifted up the flimsy skirts of my summer yukata and draped them over his head. He'd probably had a stupefied look, but I hadn't been able to see it - I'd heard it in his voice though. "What are you doing?"

"I'm not touching your mouth directly!" No way was I about to get boy germs on me.

It was an infallible plan. Kiss him through the material of my yukata and avoid getting any boy diseases. Plus the yukata was a good way to act as a contraceptive. I had to remember that for when we married.

Only problem was… I had no idea how to find his mouth.

"Kagome… I can't breathe…"

With a frustrated sigh, I had dropped my skirts back to the ground and glared at him like it was all his fault. "It isn't working." I'd complained.

"But I want my pudding!" he'd complained even louder.

"You're not getting any!" I'd shouted back.

"I'll scream in _your _ear then!"

Inuyasha had a very loud scream… I wasn't sure I wanted to risk that wrath. The last time he'd yelled down my ear, I had pretty much gone deaf for three days.

"Fine!" I had snapped. "Close your eyes!"

He'd done so without too much convincing.

I had entertained the idea of leaving him there like that, imagining he would stay in the meadow till nightfall expecting a kiss from a princess… but I had always been a bit of a rebel and my curiosity of the hushed up world of romance and kissing (things that weren't allowed to be discussed in front of children like me and Inuyasha) had gotten the better of me. I wanted to be sleazy and dirty… just to see what it was like.

Inuyasha had made a very odd sight… puckered up and eyes screwed tightly shut. So I'd shut my eyes too, puckered up as well, and had gone in for the kill.

If any adults had been watching, it would have been 'aw' material for sure. I'm certain that the artist who used to paint my mother when she was younger and prettier would have found it the perfect portrait - two children standing in a wildflower meadow, kissing under the sun with flowers in hand.

In fact, it _should _have been painted. It would have lasted longer.

The moment the customary thirty seconds was up, we'd both dove apart from each other, gagging and wiping our mouths on our sleeves like we'd just sucked something rather bitter. We spat and coughed for a good few minutes before I'd look back and given him a haughty look.

"Well, _you__'__re _not getting my pudding for _that_."

But that had been my first real kiss - not exactly a treasured memory, but it had marked a certain loss of innocence. Not that it had actually counted as proper kiss, and as for Inuyasha not remembering it… I guess it could be dismissed.

Either way, I kept reminding my mother that I was pure and innocent in every way when she asked if I'd been handled by other boys. I always left out the other little instances - like when Hojo had kissed me after telling me how he felt - a nice boy and a nice kiss, but I hadn't been all that sorry to see him sent away. Or that other time last year when the messenger's lad from Toshiyama had taken me behind the stables to show me what "Down the Rabbit Hole" meant.

Needless to say, that rabbit wouldn't be going down any more holes.

AndI _still _don't know what it meant…

"Lady Kagome. You shouldn't dawdle on the castle steps."

A creepy shiver ran down my spine and I turned quickly to see Lord Inu's adviser gazing down at me through hooded eyes. Naraku was scary when he wasn't even trying…

"Sorry." I murmured quickly and all but ran past him to get inside and out of direct contact with his cold aura.

And who did I run straight into?

"Ack! Kagome!"

"Eek! Inuyasha!"

_Run! Flee! _My panicked brain commanded but I was rooted to the spot in horror. He'd finally cornered me… or I'd cornered him… by the look on his face, he was panicking just as much as me.

"Um… hi…" I managed.

It was pitiful really. We both knew what had happened. We both knew what was going on. But neither of us wanted to say it out loud.

I watched as Inuyasha seemed to cave in visibly and let out something that sounded like a cross between a gasp and a sigh as he closed his eyes. "Look - about what I said last night-"

"Me too." I blurted in a squeaky voice.

"What?" He stared at me, totally nonplussed.

"I…" Damn that lump in my throat - the lump that rose whenever I was about to cry. "I-I think I'm falling in love too…" Now it was _my _turn to shock us both.

His eyes widened. "With me?"

I clasped my hands over my mouth as I nodded, not trusting myself to speak - or cry for that matter.

Inuyasha opened his mouth, looking as though he was about to say something more… but then he quickly closed it. We were standing just inside the doors of the castle - which wasn't the most private place to hold a conversation. Servants, soldiers and maids were walking past constantly… any one of them might hear what we had to say.

So he grabbed my hand. "Come on, let's go somewhere quieter." He started dragging me away.

His hand was warm around mine, callused but comforting. My heart sped up, but my head just groaned.

_I__'__m doomed…!_

_~Inuyasha~_

My heart was thundering, but I ignored its painful beating as I hurried up the stairs to another floor - a quieter floor where I'd be able to talk with the girl I was tugging along behind me. She stumbled every now and then when I jerked her down different corridors, and she gasped her protest when I almost manoeuvred her arm out of its socket after a sharp dive into an empty room.

"Careful!"

"Sorry!" I released her small hand and quickly slid the door shut behind me. Then I turned to face her…

We were alone… but now neither of us was particularly willing to talk. Kagome's eyes remained trained on the floor as she nervously rubbed her fingers together. I just all out stared at her, waiting for her to say something comforting or life-saving. But she seemed to have as much to say as me… which wasn't saying a lot.

So finally I said, "Were you…serious?"

She nodded again, still peering at the floor. "Were you?"

I hesitated for a moment, long enough to make her look up at me uncertainly. I nodded slowly. "Yeah…"

"So…" She bit her lip and diverted her gaze again.

Yeah… now what?

The space between her eyebrows wrinkled slightly as she began to frown. "I don't really feel ready for this…" she said quietly.

She wasn't the only one. "Me neither."

Her eyes darted back to mine. "I mean, why do I love you?! I'm supposed to hate you - I have for the last ten years!" Those heaven coloured eyes were filling with tears.

"Wait - don't cry!" I stepped forward anxiously, reaching out to take her by the shoulder, but thought better of the action and put my hands down.

"Why not?" she sniffed. "This is kinda scary!"

"Yeah, but there's no need to cry about it." Anyway, I was sure that if she started crying, I would probably join in. Going against my earlier decision, I reached out and took her by the shoulders, earning myself a heart-rending puppy-eyed look from the princess. My gaze moved from her watery eyes, over her small, straight nose to her full lips.

There seemed to be some kind of impulsive tick going on in my brain recently… otherwise I never would have tilted my head down to press my own mouth against those full lips. I was hesitant. I was also insane. Normally, this kind of behaviour was out of the question. After hating this girl's guts since the day I had met her, my world had been tipped upside down in the last week or so. There were no words to describe how disturbing it was to go from seeing someone as the constant bane of my life to something quite the opposite… I had to be going insane…

But then again, she must have been going a little mad too if she was letting me kiss her without even a squeak of protest. She should have been battering me around the head and calling me a pervert… but instead she was only winding her arms around my neck in order to hold me closer. Was I betraying myself? It certainly felt like it… but this mutinous behaviour didn't seem so bad, especially when I settled my hands against her back, pressing her forward to fully drown in the taste of her lips…

It wasn't like this was the first time I had ever kissed her - oh no. There was that time when I was nine and she'd tackled me to the ground in some random field of corn and made me kiss her - she'd threatened to eat my pudding if I didn't do as she said. That had been a stupid, childish moment and an immature kiss. Now it was me who had started the kiss and this time, neither of us were particularly angry with each other.

My hand came up to curl into her hair and privately I revelled at the texture. I'd always envied her for her hair… yes, a lot of people looked at mine and thought 'phwoar!', but up close it was coarse and wiry - so strong that trying to trim or cut it was a nightmare. But Kagome's was like silk, shiny and soft all in one. I was almost sad to see she had cut it this year, but the shorter look suited her more than I liked to admit. Besides, the long hair had always given her an uncanny resemblance to a certain miko… I reckon that's why she cut it in the first place.

She tried to break away. "Inuya-"

No way was I going to let her talk - I was too scared to. So I sealed my lips over hers again and dreaded that I would eventually have to put her down and talk to her properly. I'd never been much of a 'let's talk things out' kind of guy. I wanted action! I knew that once we started talking, I would say something stupid to her… I always did… so I just wanted to enjoy it while I could. And yes… I was enjoying it. Perhaps the dream I'd had about kissing her had been a premonition since this certainly wasn't exactly the most unpleasant situation in my life. After all, she didn't taste as bad as I'd imagined. In fact she tasted like… well… nothing really, except maybe of warmth and gentleness, although I had my doubts about whether or not those were actual flavours.

Eventually, she outwitted me by pressing her hands against my shoulders and pulling herself out of the kiss. She seemed slightly dazed but I knew I was no better off. "Why did you do that?" she asked, scanning my face with searching eyes.

I shrugged. Because I damn well felt like it? "I don't know…"

She slowly laid her head against my shoulder… well, we were in each others arms, so there wasn't really much else to do. We were both a bit shocked at the way things were working out…

I know if our parents had just witnessed the kiss, the celebrations and wedding plans would already have been underway. They had no idea that the children they were urging together - with no hint of success in sight - had just declared love under their noses…

"I had no idea you felt like that…" she whispered to me.

He snorted lightly. "I kinda had an idea… when you kept blushing every time I did or said something nice-"

"Which wasn't very often." she pointed out dryly.

"I could still kinda tell though…" I sighed. "Plus, after Miroku kept telling me how you felt, it would take a real idiot not to notice."

"That's funny. Miroku was the one who told me how you felt, too…" Kagome shifted slightly. "I was talking to him just a minute ago… you know, I was so sure that you two were playing a trick on me, but he seemed really surprised when I told him that you had told me how you felt… but then he walked off talking about some bet about with marriage and Sango."

My blood ran cold.

"What?" My chest felt constricted.

"It was kinda weird really…" she went on. "He's been so confident as he keeps telling me you're in love with me but then he looks like he has a heart attack when you confirmed it…"

"Kagome…" I cringed a little, but forced myself to say it. "You didn't happen to tell Miroku that you wanted to marry me and have my children… did you?"

She pulled back quickly. "Never!" She looked startled. "I said I _didn__'__t _want to marry you!"

"Miroku told me you did!"

I released her and she released me… we took carefully measured steps away from each other,  beginning to glare daggers at the other… or maybe just glaring at each other because Miroku wasn't there to hone our wrath on.

"So you didn't tell him that you wanted to stop the fighting and just marry me?" I demanded hotly.

"I told him that I wanted to keep fighting forever!" she snapped. "I thought you told him that you were in love with me and wanted to convince me that I was in love with you too!"

"I never said that!" I shouted. "I only said what I said last night because I thought you were in love with me! He's been having us on because of some stupid thing I said about Sango only ever being interested in him the day I was willing to marry you!"

That's when everything fell quiet and we both realised our incredible mistake. It was all a lie. Everything that we had just done and said had no foundation, no basis and no truth. We weren't in love, we'd just been played.

Kagome had realised the same thing if the dangerous flash in her eyes was anything to go by. Her hard, steely eyes locked with mine and I matched the intensity of her anger with a deeper rage and resentment of my own.

"I'm going to kill him." she said steadily, but the venom was an almost tangent coating over her words.

"Not before I wrap that fucking bouzu around a fucking tree."

AN: Miroku! Look out! Here comes that boomerang!


	8. Stages of Love

**Author****'****s Notes: **Ok, I'm a bit late so this will be the only chapter I can manage before I leave tomorrow morning. I should be back around the 21st unless I like the weather in Arizona so much that I won't come back home ^_^

So this is goodbye till then and read this chapter as slowly as possible to last out three weeks (an infallible plan ¬_¬).

TTFN!

**Autumn Bane**

**Chapter 8**

**Stages of Love**

_~Kagome~_

No one was any the wiser the next morning. My mother was still sick with her flu, although her fever had faded somewhat, and she was far from discovering that her daughter had been very cosy with her fiancé the previous day. Lord Inu was about as oblivious to everything as ever so there no worries there. The only people who knew what me and Inuyasha had done was… me and Inuyasha.

That had been my first real kiss…

With a sigh, I sharply reprimanded myself. Of course it wasn't! But oddly enough, it had felt so new and strange that it had felt like the first time all over again. Hojo had been my first, but I'd kinda stood there, a bit too shocked and flabbergasted to respond to him. Plus, I never really liked Hojo in that way so I didn't like to think of that time as my first true kiss. Then there was the messenger, but I don't think it warranted as a real kiss either because I bit his lip and drew blood deliberately.

The last person I thought I'd ever enjoy a kiss with was Inuyasha… but blow me down with a feather, the second his lips had touched mine I had ascended to a whole new level of heaven. He'd felt hesitant… probably because he'd expected me to start bashing him at any moment. But why would I do that? I was falling in love with him, and he was falling in love with me. We were a couple right then and there…

But were we?

Miroku and his slippery lies had led us to confronting each other… and no sooner had we both realised what the monk had done, then we both spouted the truth. Inuyasha had only said he was falling in love with me because he thought _I _was the one in love. His pity for me had driven him to say something he didn't feel… and his little white lie had provoked a similar response from me.

But had it?

If I wasn't in love with Inuyasha, and my feelings were only a result of Miroku's meddling, then why had I been getting butterflies at the mere thought of him since the moment I had arrived?

Well… these were one sided feelings, apparently – Inuyasha had made that _very _clear. I wasn't going to embarrass myself any more by speaking of them again.

Running my hands over my hair, I inhaled deeply and closed my eyes. Things were messy now… somehow me and Inuyasha had screwed up our wonderfully stable hate/hate relationship. After that kiss and our discovery of Miroku's instigating, I hadn't dared follow up on the feelings I'd professed. I didn't kiss him, hug him, smile at him or any of the fond things I would do if I was in love with him… I withdrew and turned cold. He did the same…

Just like that, all our walls were back up and we were ignoring each other the way we should have been…

But at least we were together on one thing; and that was Miroku's demise. We'd organised it together… we hadn't mentioned if the monk had succeeded or if he'd failed… we just talked revenge and were going to get on with it.

"Lady Kagome, is something the matter?"

I opened my eyes slowly. Ah… here came the mouse sniffing after his cheese. But I wasn't the one who would be springing the trap… Inuyasha would be doing that. I was just the bait.

"Houshi…" I turned with a smile to face him, setting down the kimono I was working on. "Don't worry, I'm fine."

I was smiling, but oh how I wished to take up my needle to stab him a few times for good measure…

"Have you spoken to Inuyasha yet?" he asked amiably from the doorway. "I'm sure-"

"I have." I interrupted abruptly, my smile never wavering.

"Oh?" he seemed surprised. "And what did you discuss?"

I gave a dreamy sigh. "Our feelings. After I told him I loved him too, we kissed and decided that we should marry by the end of Autumn."

Miroku beamed at me. "See? I told you it would all work out if you were honest to each other."

"In fact, we're so happy and so grateful for your help that we want to thank you to the bottom of our hearts." Forget being a princess – I was an actress! "I know that Inuyasha is just _dying _to thank you personally. I know – come with me and we'll find him together."

"Do you know where he is?" Miroku followed me as I swept past him into the corridor.

Did I know where Inuyasha was? In the same room as our carefully laid trap, obviously. But I couldn't say that so I improvised. "Oh, when you're in love you intuitively know where your other half is."

"It's so nice to see you two getting along." Miroku told me happily. "It makes a lovely change from seeing you down each others throats."

I coughed slightly but kept my smile in place as I led the hapless fool to his doom. I wasn't as passionate about getting revenge as Inuyasha, but this monk had played us both and embarrassed _me _most of all. I was ashamed that I had been so easily pulled along to the idea that Inuyasha was in love with me. I should have known better… people didn't go from bearing ten year grudges to being in love in a matter of days.

I led Miroku up to the top floor – the floor in least use. We stopped outside a random empty room and I turned to him. "He's in there."

"After you." He gestured.

"Age before beauty." I gestured back.

"Oh no, youth before wisdom."

I hesitated slightly. Was he onto us? Or was he just being a polite gentlemen to a fault? "Ok…" I said slowly, knowing I would have to improvise a little more. I knocked on the door. "Inuyasha – Miroku's here to thank you… darling."

"Ok… sweetie, bring him in."

I slid open the door and, seeing as how reluctant he was to go in first, I drove my elbow into his back and surged forward.

"Whoa!" he stumbled forward. "What on earth was that for?"

That? Oh, that was for the plank of wood that came swinging out from the side to clock him on the head. I smiled blandly as he reeled for a moment after the impact before succumbing to the blow and toppling back. I stepped aside nimbly to avoid getting caught by his falling form… then I looked up at Inuyasha who was idly slapping the end of the wooden plank into his palm.

"Crude, but effective." I commented.

He smirked, nudging Miroku with his foot. "Looks like we caught ourselves a big one, eh?"

~_Inuyasha~_

There were many things in life that got up my nose and had my ears in a twist – the main one being harvest flies… literally. I hate harvest flies. I also hate warm drinking water that has been left in the sun for too long. I hate sand, new moons, moths, monkeys, millipedes and most of all, _monks_.

At least… one in particular.

I also despised being the subject of a trap led by a glib-mouthed instigator. I was ashamed and embarrassed that I hadn't seen through his lies sooner. But no matter… he would be a dead monk soon enough.

Well… not really, but he was going to be wishing he was when I was through with him.

"How long is he going to be unconscious?" Kagome asked from where she sat cross-legged on the floor, looking up at the rafters. She was casually sucking sticky rice off her fingers from the snack she'd brought up from the kitchens.

"Dunno…" I answered, following her gaze to the monk we'd tied up against the widest timber beam. I pursed my lips thoughtfully before picking up one of the remaining rice balls and lobbing it up at our victim. "Hey! Bouzu! Wake up already!"

The little food package hit him on the cheek with a wet slap and he snorted awake. "What? Huh?" He blinked down at us. "Why… why are you standing on the ceiling…?"

"You…!" I jabbed a claw at him. "You have a lot to answer for, asshole!"

He gave me an appealingly innocent look. "I have no idea what you mean."

Kagome was on her feet in an eye blink beside me. "Don't give us that! You've been going between us and inventing things!"

"Things like love!" I added.

"Yeah!" Kagome glowered up at him impressively. "Do you have any idea how it feels to have your feelings played with?!"

We both folded our arms, awaiting his answer.

"Well." He looked down at himself, completely strapped to the rafters as he was. "Seeing as how I'm tied up like a spit roast, I'll have to be honest in my interrogation. No, I have no idea what it's like to have your emotions played with."

What an irritating answer…

"You lied to us!" Kagome snapped at him. "You told me that he was in love with me!"

"Nope." He smiled neutrally. "I said he had feelings for you… which he did at the time I told you about them."

A heated flush spread across my face, and I wouldn't have been too surprised if I was blushing. "I only had these so called 'feelings' because you were telling me that Kagome was in love with me."

"Well… isn't she?" He blinked at us.

I glanced at Kagome hesitantly at the same moment she glanced at me. We both looked away with equally peeved expressions. "I did _not _tell you I wanted to marry him and have his children!" Kagome growled, looking flustered.

I watched her out of the corner of my eye, startled that she hadn't actually outright denied Miroku's accusation that she was in love with me. But maybe that didn't mean anything and I was looking too far into it…

"You pulled us along, monk!" I bit out. "You made us believe in something which wasn't true and now we're not going to let you down till you apologise!"

"Ok." he chirped cheerfully. "I apologise for causing you both a lot of grief and embarrassment. Feel free to never forgive me, for I am your humble friend who only got his signals crossed. I am sorry from the very soles of my sandals."

Me and Kagome exchanged perturbed looks. Damn… that had been too easy.

"Forget that. We're not letting you down." I said, realising that Miroku wasn't beneath stooping to grovelling in order to get free. "We're not letting you down till tonight when you've had ample time to think about what you've done."

Miroku gave a heavy sigh. "Inuyasha… I daresay that I have had as much time to think about this as you."

I narrowed my eyes up at him. "Meaning?"

"Meaning you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink." he replied loftily.

I narrowed my eyes even more. "Uh… meaning?"

"Meaning I can tell you one thing and I can tell her another, but in the end, I cannot _make_ you love each other. Love is your own creation, not mine. I didn't cheat anyone; you're both just cheating yourselves. You're both so busy wrapped up in hating each other that you fail to notice any other feelings – I merely gave you a push in the right direction. Nothing more."

"We _aren__'__t _in love!" I ground out. "You just like to think we are."

"My mistake." Miroku shrugged as best he could. "But maybe you should only speak for yourself, Inuyasha."

I wasn't sure I understood what he meant again, although Kagome sure did. I turned to ask her, but she was already storming towards the door. "Kagome-"

"Leave me alone!" she snapped, sliding the door shut with a bang in her wake.

"Oh, well done." Miroku complimented me sarcastically from above my head. "I'd give you the slow clap, but my hands are a little tied at the moment."

"Shut up…" I grumbled half-heartedly, still a little confused at Kagome's sudden swing in moods. What was her problem anyway?

"Inuyasha, as much as I'd love to _hang _around here all day, I really do have things to do. Evil omens to vanquish, women to comfort, men to rip-off, you know the sort." Miroku called sweetly. "Would you mind being a good fellow and letting me down?"

"You're staying up there till midnight!" I snapped back, already beginning to enter the first stage of my most foul mood yet. 

"I don't think so…" Miroku called down uncertainly. "You didn't tie these knots very securely, did you?"

"I used granny knots." I scowled. "They'll hold."

"Are you sure? Or did you use bunny knots?"

"Um…" I thought hard. "You know, I don't really remember which one's which."

Something snapped above me and a tendril of rope came spiralling to the floor, allowing Miroku's arm to slump down. "Bunny knots." said the monk who looked like he was either constipated or just holding his breath. "Definitely bunny knots."

"Ah." I nodded, looking all knowing and wise. "Looks like you'll be down sooner then you thought."

I pivoted and started for the door.

"Wait! Aren't you going to put a blanket beneath me at least?"

I shrugged, still walking away. "And why would I do that?" I stepped out and shut the door after me, but Miroku's voice was still clear as day.

"Because if these ropes slip and I fall, I'll-"

Snap, snap, snap went the ropes! I listened with mingled delight and a twinge of sympathy as I heard a loud thud and a muffled variety of choice curses. Well, as long as there was karmic justice, I was satisfied. 

I dusted off my hands and went on my way.

However… something weighed on my mind. Miroku may have been dealt with, but Kagome was another matter entirely. I had a feeling that her current strop would only bear more grief for me.

Selfish cow…

_~Kagome~_

****

_What a creep!!_

I think I actually let out a heartfelt growl at some point as I stomped down the steps leading into the castle's compound, starling a few of the maids I passed on the way. I was so annoyed with him – I just couldn't help it.

I mean, come on! There was a point when such passionate denial began to get on your nerves! How many times had he not-so-subtly pointed out that we weren't in love? Loudly?

I drew to a stop beside the dried-up well, gazing thoughtfully at the scuffed dirt beside it. I felt miserable… depressed even… but I wasn't sure why. Inuyasha's rather loud admission that we weren't in love had touched a nerve. It made me wonder… did I want us to be in love? Did I really want to stop the fighting and settle down with him?

Was I in love?

With a huff, I shook my head, casting my hair across my face. No. I wasn't _allowed _to be in love. Especially when the object of my so called 'affections' wasn't about to return them. I had more dignity than that. I wouldn't trail around after him like some lovesick teenager… or even worse – a princess with unrequited love!

I wasn't a sop! I was Kagome – the most infamously feisty Princess in all of the Western lands!

"You." said a voice uncomfortably close to my ear.

I whipped around with a startled squeak.

Well… feisty up to a certain point… and that certain point was a certain creepy advisor.

"Kagome-hime," Naraku drawled, looking down his nose at me. "Is it not proper for princesses to remain indoors at such hours as these?"

Right then and there, I realised that Naraku didn't like me. Whenever he saw me, he basically told me to push off with his "princesses shouldn't be here" speech. This was awfully rude considering I was a guest here and fiancée to the son of his master. He wasn't exactly below my station… but he wasn't exactly above me either. I may have been a Hime, but in terms of nobility I was only middle of the road – being a hime was no where near as close to being a daimyou, was it? And second best to being a daimyou was being advisor to one…

So in some respect, gender wise if nothing else, Naraku could pull rank on me at any time.

 Any time like this moment right here. A pity I wasn't in the mood to be pushed around by snobbish advisors.

"I'm just getting some fresh air." I smiled hollowly at him, not at all surprised when he didn't return the gesture. "Even us princesses need a little time to clear our heads."

He flicked his gaze momentarily to a point behind me, then returned his glare to my face. Yes, that was definitely a glare. Judging by where we were standing and the direction he'd just glanced in, he'd looked at Kikyo's humble abode. I still remembered quite clearly that he had asked the miko to marry him several times already. Was that where he was going now?

No doubt Kikyo would turn him down… probably because she had feelings for a certain hanyou.

A twinge of something akin to annoyance tugged my eyebrows together for a moment.

Was I jealous?

"It would be best if you were to go indoors." Naraku interrupted my inner monologue.

With a sigh, I shifted my stance and folded my arms. "Look, I'm not doing anyone any harm here, am I? Why can't you just leave me be?"

I reckon he just wanted to pick on me because I looked like _her_. Perhaps his pent-up irritation with Kikyo was out-letting itself

But then Naraku surprised me. He bowed humbly before me. "Then by all means, stay there, princess." He turned and swept away, heading in the direction of Kikyo's house.

I couldn't help my snarky, little mutter once he was out of ear-shot. "There is such a thing as flogging a dead horse, pal…"

Imagine how my heart pounded when he stopped, and for a moment looked as though he was about to turn to me again. He couldn't possibly have heard that! I was ready to jump down the well to hide if he really did turn to give me the ultimate death glare I instinctively knew he was capable of… but no. He started on his way again without a backward glance.

With a sigh, I blew out the air I hadn't known I'd been holding. I slumped against the well and resumed my intense stare of the scuffed earth. 

My thoughts wandered for a while, as thoughts tend to do, but no matter where they led me, I was always taken back to Inuyasha. I think I actually pondered on what it would be like to really marry him and kiss him and have children. I didn't want to marry _yet_, but I knew that one day I really did want to have children of my own…

The fact that I kept picturing my future little darlings with little doggie ears and golden eyes made me want to cry.

Our parents had signed and stamped our fate together and that was that. Any children I have will be Inuyasha's… every kiss I share will be with Inuyasha. But what upset me most was that I actually began to _long _for that kind of future with him… even though he evidently felt nothing for me. What was I supposed to do?

I may have shed a small tear or two, but I dried them quickly with a dusty sleeve and blinked rapidly to try and rid myself of the urge to cry. They say that you feel refreshed after crying… but perhaps I hadn't cried enough, because I felt absolutely rotten. 

Perhaps I should continue in more private dwellings? I glanced around suspiciously before standing and heading back towards the castle.

A crash and a mighty crack of splintering wood made me and everyone else in the compound whirl around. My hand flew to cover my mouth in horror as I watched half of Kikyo's house tear apart from the other half and go cascading across the allotments. I wasn't near enough to be caught in the rain of debris, but I saw several villagers ducking for covering as wood and thatch hailed down.

Kikyo stood with Naraku in the remaining half of her house, looking out over the destruction with a look on her face that suggested she'd just bit into a lemon. Naraku looked cocky… but his _arm _was what got me.

Who knew that the daimyo's advisor could apparently turn his arm into a tentacle?

And with a quick 'schlurp' sound, it could be sucked right back into its original arm-shaped form.

I pointed, completely flabbergasted. "Did you see that?!" Who was I talking to anyway? "He's a demon!"

_~Inuyasha~_

Of all the crummy jobs in the world, I'd been assigned to – _this _had to be the lamest.

"Open your mouth." I said flatly.

"Go away." Lady Jun responded, equally as flat.

I pouted slightly. "I can't feed you if you don't open your mouth!" I grouched.

"Don't you take that tone of voice with me, young man." she lectured, giving me a cold eye from where she lay on her futon. But she soon enough switched that glare to a rather concussed-looking Miroku on her other side. "And what is _he _doing here?"

"To be honest, I'm kinda scared of you." I told her bluntly. "No way am I putting my hands near your mouth without some kind of witness."

"Oh ho!" she scoffed at me. "If you think one lousy witness will keep me from attacking any wandering hands, then you've got another thing-"

"Do you want to starve to death?! Open your mouth and take the damn food-!"

"-And no ­_perverted_ hands should be wandering near, thank you very much!"

Miroku gave a loud sigh. "Please cease your fighting-"

"SHUT IT!" we both bellowed at him.

The monk sat back with a rather put-out expression.

"Ok…" I said slowly, taking an onigiri in hand. I braced for another struggle. "Just sit back, relax, and put this in your mouth."

"Have you washed your hands?" she demanded.

"What's it to you?" I asked haughtily.

"I'm already sick! I don't want to get sicker!"

"Take the damn rice ball!"

"I'll die first!"

Ouch… but she'd said it, not me. "Very well, I guess we'll just have to do things the hard way!" I shuffled closer on my knees.

"What are you doing?" She eyed me warily. "Stay back – I'm warning you!"

"Just a little persuasion technique." I told her flippantly as I straddled her waist and clamped my free hand around her jaw. "Now open up for the birdie, Jun."

Her teeth remained firmly clamped together before she still found a way to talk. "Don't call me Jun!" Except it sounded more like "Jnn kull ne Jgh!"

"Well, this isn't very dignified." Miroku commented from the sidelines.

I glanced at him. "If you want forgiveness, then you better damn well help me out here!"

"Fine…" He gave another dramatic sigh and shuffled forward to help unclamp Lady Jun's jaw. "Wow, she's pretty strong for a sick lady."

Sango chose that wonderfully well timed and almost strategic moment to enter. Me and Miroku both looked up at her uncertainly as she looked back at us with a nonplussed expression.

"Guys, I leave you alone for five minutes and you're already molesting her."

"She won't eat the damn food." I said bitterly as I sat back.

"That's because you're not doing it right." Sango came over to kneel down beside Lady Jun and picked up a rice ball. "You have to coax her."

"I'm not a cat." was the testy response.

Right then, somewhere beyond the castle came a terrific crash. My ears flicked towards the source of the sound which was loud enough for even the humans to hear.

"What was that?" Sango whispered.

"Sounded like… someone smashing wood?" Miroku hazarded a guess.

I was up on my feet and racing out of the room in a second flat. People around the castle were also on their feet, heading outside to see what was happening, but I overtook them and charged down the halls at a rate of knots to see it first.

But by the time I arrived, it was already over. Damn Lady Jun's room for being on the upper floors…

My father was the nearest person I recognised. He looked grim and unusually sombre. "What happened?" I asked, looking around at the mass debris of what looked like a house. With a start, I realised that it was Kikyo's. "Where's Kikyo?! Is she-"

"Fine? Yes." My father responded, waving a hand in the general direction of the well. I followed his gaze and spotted the miko standing beside the wooden structure, leaning against her bow. She seemed ok… but I noticed that only a few metres away, someone had been tackled to the earth and was currently being tied up more firmly that I had done for Miroku. "That's…?"

"Naraku." My father nodded. "His passion for the miko has led him to extremes… he's dangerous." His brow lowered a fraction. "He's also a demon."

You learned something new every day.

Well… I didn't particularly care about Naraku, so I wasn't too upset at his apprehension by the guards. He'd probably be exiled or beheaded or something…

Kikyo was my main concern.

I started towards the well, intent on reaching her and seeing if she really was ok.

Kagome intercepted me before I got to her. "Did you see what happened?" She was in a state of disbelief. "Naraku was a-"

"Demon? He's also an asshole, but what are you gonna do?" I didn't even grace her with a momentary glance as I brushed past her on my way to Kikyo.

The miko saw me coming and smiled ever so slightly. I frowned in concern. "Are you ok?"

"I'm fine. Naraku just got angry that I refused his offer of marriage again." she answered calmly.

"But he didn't hurt you?" I looked her over for some sign of damage or bleeding. "He didn't touch you then?"

There was that small smile again. "He touched me." She raised a hand to cheek to show me where. "Which is why he is now unconscious."

Good. But the thought of Naraku touching any part of Kikyo literally made my stomach turn…

_~Kagome~_

What was I, invisible?

I'd just stood there like a prat as he'd pushed past me in order to make a dash for Kikyo. It was reasonable, I guess… considering she was the one who had been attacked and all. But still… didn't I even merit a _glance_?

I looked over at the pair who were conversing deeply. Kikyo seemed to be reassuring him whilst Inuyasha seemed to be overly concerned for her welfare. My temper literally flared to life when his hand touched her cheek though. He dropped it just as casually, but my jealousy still raged.

Yep. Definitely jealousy.

I couldn't stand any more at that point. I turned and marched back into the castle, making a straight beeline for the room I shared with Inuyasha and our favourite chaperones. I slammed the door shut and immediately flopped down on my rolled up futon. I sat there and I steamed. There was nothing else I was capable of doing…

Then I cried. Gut-wrenching, heart-breaking tears fled down my cheeks and I felt out of control. I couldn't stop myself from sobbing. All I could do was clutch my stomach as the sheer force of my tears made me double over. I could almost feel my heart tearing, a horrible squeezing feeling in my chest that made me cry all the harder. 

But even as I sobbed my heart out, I felt angry. Angry at myself, angry at Inuyasha, angry at Kikyo even.

"I bet if it had been _me _who was attacked, he still wouldn't have cared!" I shouted into the empty room, my anger and pain already well beyond my control. "If I'd been blown to smithereens, he _still _would have gone to her to see if she was ok!" I feigned his voice. "_Oh Kikyo! I hope all Kagome__'__s raining down body parts didn__'__t hit you or stain your robes with blood or anything!__"_

Didn't the kiss we'd shared mean anything to him? Was it just so easy to forget that he had told me he was falling love with me?! How could he just turn around and act like nothing had happened when my whole world had been upturned and rearranged around_ him_?!

I wanted to hit him – if he'd been there, I would probably have done so. And I would have made sure it hurt.

In this fleeting passionate moment, I wanted to hurt him inside his chest as much as I was hurting right then. I had never felt such pain… and it was much worse than physical pain. A splinter had been lodged in my heart and it wouldn't budge – it was driving me beyond my limits to the point where I didn't care what I did.

I kicked my rolled up futon, tore the sleeves off my kimono and for the grand finale, I screamed. I really screamed. I took all my pain and my anger into on lungful of air and I let it out at a deafening quality…

A flock of birds took flight from the trees far below the castle grounds, and I heard a lull of noise in the lower compound as people must have stopped what they were doing to listen to this awful scream.

Good. I finally had someone's attention. I wondered if Inuyasha could hear me… hear my pain…

I couldn't keep it up and I soon collapsed to my knees, breaking off the scream with more choked up sobbing. I was such a mess… and I was so ashamed of myself for losing control. I had screamed myself so hoarse that the crying began to chafe my throat.

I just wanted to curl up and die.

I had just about gotten to the curling up part when Sango came upon me. She had evidently heard my scream. "Kagome, what's wrong?" She hurried to my side to comfort me, but by then my tears were already beginning to subside a little… yet I was still left feeling as horrible as ever.

Sango helped though. Her arms wrapped around me compassionately and l leant again her heavily as she rocked me. She smelled feminine and her embrace was gentle and motherly… and I couldn't help but wish that she had smelled musty and wild like Inuyasha with an embrace that radiated protection and loving. I closed my eyes tightly and tried to pretend he was holding me… but Sango's chest was too lumpy to fool my imagination.

I was in love with him..

I hadn't just been in love with him since he had swept past me to see Kikyo. I hadn't fallen in love with him when he'd kissed me, or even as far back as the first moment I'd seen him and gotten dizzy.

I'd loved him for years… many, _many _years.

As a child, I had looked to him as my other half, his yin to my yang. I'd secretly adored him and had been in constant awe of his personality – his ability to challenge me in everything I did. I'd grown to love him like a brother, a near constant presence who had been an annoyance, but a comfort at the same time. He'd been my protector. When I'd fallen down, he'd picked me up. When another boy had shown me unwanted attentions, he'd been there to put an end to it. His daily challenging had brought me to life, and I knew that every time I returned home without him I was empty till the next Autumn."

Then I'd loved him with a girlish crush, completely flustered by his attractiveness and his occasional ability to be pleasant. It had been nice while it lasted…

But now I was truly in love with him. I'd outgrown my crush and it had blossomed fully into a woman's love so powerful that I could hardly bear it by myself. It terrified me the same way it exhilarated me…

_But…_

I clenched my fingers into the material of Sango's yukata and winced as hot tears prickled my eyes again. Her tender embrace remained as she whispered comforting, yet meaningless words above my head…

I could help it. I couldn't stop the tears from falling because there was one painful fact that kept returning to stab me straight to the heart. I was in love…

_But he doesn__'__t love me back…!_

****

AN: Ooh… . The teenage angst!


	9. Flower Child

**Author's Notes: **Sorry. Just… sorry. Getting a chapter of AB out of me is like trying to get blood from a stone. And I just want to throw out a thank you to everyone for being so patient. A not so big thank you to those who got impatient and rude and started cussing me out (go laugh at them in the review board). But a really big thanks to Midoriko-sama who helped me figure out what the hell is going on. XD

Anyway, I urge people to reread. Because if you've forgotten the story (like I had) then this is likely to make as much sense as a Gorilla in a banana suit.

* * *

**Autumn Bane**

**Chapter 9**

**Flower Child**

_:Inuyasha:_

The scream had been awful. Everyone in view had just stopped and looked about in a daze as the terrible sound had split the air. The chatter had died down in an instant, and the sound of people clattering through Kikyo's hut wreckage fell quiet as the workers had just _listened_. The birds took flight from the trees below, and I could have almost sworn that every living creature within a mile of the castle had just shut up.

That sound was barely human.

But I could tell from the pitch of the scream, as well as its volume, that the only one voicing it could be Kagome.

And three days later, the sound still reverberated up my spine with a shiver.

"So… what's the matter with Kagome?" I slid nonchalantly into conversation with Sango.

The handmaid gave me a cantankerous glare over whatever new broth she was boiling for Kagome's mother. She'd been giving me this look a lot over the past couple of days – probably because I'd been asking this particular question just as many times.

"For the last time, I – _don't _– know," she ground out and went back to brewing the medicinal herbs. "Believe me – if she was even remotely inclined to tell _anyone_, I would be the first to know. Maybe she's just getting pre-menstrual tension?"

"Pre-what-ual what-sion?"

"Uh… never mind." Sango shook her head at me. She sampled a little of her broth before quickly pulling a face. "Yuck… needs more tea leaves."

I handed the bundle of leaves over absently. "But why is she avoiding me, Sango?" I pressed. "Every time I walk into a room, she walks out the other end. Every time she sees me coming towards her down the corridor, she suddenly turns around and all but runs away from me! And we were supposed to meet up and play Shogi this morning, but she didn't even turn up!"

Sango's sigh was droll and loud. "Inuyasha, have you forgotten the fact that _you both hate each other!_ You've hated each other for the past ten years!" She shot him a confused look. "Why is it so strange that Kagome is avoiding you?"

"Because normally she'd rather find me and pull my ears if she was upset with me!" I snapped back. "This is weird. This isn't like her."

A strange expression slid over the other girl's face as if something had just dawned on her. "That's true…" Her stirring slowed down. "She _is _being awfully quiet."

"See!" I jabbed a finger at her triumphantly.

"And to be honest, she does seem a little paler than normal… and I haven't seen her eating in a few days." She tapped her chin thoughtfully.

That last comment made my stomach drop a little. "Not eating?" I demanded.

"Yes, but she promised me this morning that she was when I wasn't… looking…" she trailed off under my incredulous stare. "But I guess that was a little naïve of me, huh…?"

"Well… where is she now?" I asked.

Sango shrugged. "How should I know? She won't even talk to me anymore."

And a Kagome who wouldn't even talk to her best friend was a very isolated girl indeed. But my concern had been building over the last couple of days, and now I was beginning to realise that it was ridiculous… _Kagome _was being ridiculous. Kagome was stubborn, but she wasn't an idiot – so why was she acting like this?

I left Sango to her brew and stormed my way through the castle to the room where Lady Jun was resting. The woman was asleep when I arrived, and there was no sign of her daughter anywhere in the room. So then it was off to her bedchamber, but again, Kagome was nowhere to be found.

I literally ran into my father in the hallway outside, and proceeded to bowl myself off my own feet and into the wall. That man was more rock than youkai. "Careful, boy, you almost made me sway." He chuckled as he pulled me upright again.

"Have you seen Kagome?"

"Why?" His stare was very intent all of a sudden. "Are you going to propose to her, son?"

"Uh… no… I'm just curious."

He made the usual effort to contain his disappointment – i.e. he didn't. "No, I'm afraid I haven't seen her since this morning at breakfast… I seem to recall she left just around the time that you arrived."

"Right. Thanks." For nothing, old man.

I asked several more people – servants and maids – but not one of them could say that Kagome had been in the castle since breakfast. My search led outside…

"Miroku!" I pounced on the monk who was busy trying to impress a gaggle of young girls. "Where's Kagome?"

"No idea." He looked at me sourly as the girls mooched away. "Have you tried asking Sango?"

That's when it dawned on me. Kagome was missing.

Actually, it dawned on me after half an hour of searching the entire outer compound of the castle. Particularly when I caught a lingering draft of Kagome's scent curving towards the castle gates. I only had to ask the guards standing there to determine that, yes, Kagome had left the castle grounds earlier that day and had yet to return.

"Stupid, stupid girl." I muttered angrily under my breath as I spend down the hillside, away from the castle and on the trail of her scent. I was more inclined to blame the guards for letting a princess go unescorted out of the castle, but for some reason, I doubted that Kagome was totally innocent. She was always looking for trouble at one time or another, and the last few days certainly had been very troublesome where Kagome was concerned.

But it wasn't just Kagome who had been weird over the past few days.

_I'd _been weird too.

I wasn't sure where I stood with the girl anymore. I wasn't sure what she wanted… what _I _wanted. Maybe I wanted to go back to the way things were – with me hating her and vice versa – but if that happened, would I be satisfied? Especially after all the things that had happened so recently?

Why did I think of kissing her more than throwing her down the well? And why did my chest ache every time she saw me and ran away?

I wanted answers, and if she tried to run away… then… I'd _really _throw her down the well so she'd just have to sit down, shut up and listen to me for once.

I ran past an old, gnarled oak tree, dead with age and decay. I spared the tree a small glance, remembering the landmark as one that I'd passed several times before. What on earth was Kagome thinking, coming out this far from the castle? Didn't she know that demon attacks were common around here – and the victims were usually innocent young women and stupid princesses?

Her scent trail veered north very suddenly, and before long a wide meadow opened out before me. It was green and fertile, with speckles of red and yellow wildflowers dotted amongst the grass. And there in the middle stood my princess.

Except, something about the way she stood made me freeze in my tracks. She was facing away from me, holding something in her hands before her, but her entire posture indicated that she was slumped and miserable. An old dream came back to me in a rush, one in which she'd stood in exactly the same way but in the middle of a lake of blood. In the dream, she'd turned and her sadness had faded away to happiness at the sight of me…

But when the real Kagome turned and saw me standing at the edge of her meadow, her expression didn't even flicker. It was almost as if she were looking through me, as though I wasn't even there at all.

It was almost as if I were looking at Kikyo.

I wondered who would break the ice... or who would run away first.

"Hi." She opened her mouth and that one clear syllable fell out. My eyes darted down, and I realised that she was holding a bunch of daisies in her fist. I looked to her face again, amazed that not even a small smile had twitched the corner of her lips.

"What are you doing out here?" My brow furrowed and I strode towards her.

"What does it look like?" She bent down and plucked another wildflower by the stem. "I just wanted some time alone for once."

"For once?" My temper was getting more and more riled by her nonchalance. How dare she run away from me – from everyone – and then give me a breezy shrug. "You've been isolating yourself from everyone for the past few days! What the hell's wrong with you!"

She sighed loudly and really did give a breezy shrug this time. "Everything. Nothing." She fiddled with the flower arrangement in her hands. "But I've been doing some thinking today, and I've decided."

This girl was _beyond _infuriating. "Decided what exactly?" I practically spat at her.

"That… it's ok," she said impassively, her face still oddly blank. "You can't change people, and you can't change how they feel or what they do, so why worry about it? Why fight what you were born to do?"

She was beyond infuriating and well into confusing now. I wondered if she'd had some mental breakdown over the past few days that I wasn't aware of. "Just what are you talking about?"

"Nothing important…" She lifted an arm to tuck a wildflower into her sleeve. "Hey, Inuyasha… do you remember this field?"

I looked around, wondering if this was some sort of trick question. "Should I?"

The rest of the flowers twiddled in her hands, and her eyes narrowed slightly – the first hint of expression that had crossed her face since she'd turned to face me. "No… I suppose not."

Obviously I'd said the wrong thing – as impossible as that seemed – so I rushed to correct myself. "I seem to recall you stole my pudding somewhere around here," I said, trying to sound casual. I actually remembered where exactly it had happened, but I didn't want to look like a fool who clung to every precious memory of her when she obviously hated my guts.

But again, I seemed to have said the wrong thing. Her chin dropped and her eyes closed tightly for a brief moment before she turned away. She went back to picking flowers as calmly as if I wasn't there, and although her voice was steady when she said "Something like that," I knew she was crying.

Of all the ways Kagome could make me feel like a complete jerk, _crying_ topped the list. I swallowed hard and looked around, dearly wishing that I could just flee into the forest and escape the guilt she caused me. But that would only make matters worse. And besides… what had I done that deserved this guilt trip?

And perhaps the fact that I didn't know… was the whole reason she was miserable?

My shoulders wilted enough to match her slumped posture. "Kagome…" I began quietly and saw her hand pause in its motion of snapping a poppy stem. "What have I done?"

* * *

_:Kagome:_

_You made me fall in love with you, that's what!_

I'm amazed the words didn't tear from my throat, despite being on the tip of my tongue. One look at his despondent face told me his side of the story. He thought he'd done something to upset me. He thought _he _was the one making _me _miserable.

It was best to just come clean.

"I'm sorry," I said quietly, speaking to the flowers in my hands rather than Inuyasha. "You must really hate me."

His silence was all the affirmation I needed. It hurt, I admit, but it wasn't unexpected.

"If it wasn't for me… you'd be free to do whatever you wanted," I pointed out. "You wouldn't be forced to spend these stupid Autumns with me, and you'd probably still have the tip of your little finger."

He shrugged and raised his hand. "It grew back last year."

"Oh, that's a relief." I'd felt quite bad about that one.

"What's this all about, Kagome?" Inuyasha demanded shortly. "What the hell are you apologising for? It's not like you enjoyed these Autumns either."

"No… I didn't," I replied honestly as nervous fingers meticulously shredded the poppy I was holding. "I hated them. I wanted to kill you half the time because you were so infuriating. But…"

"But what?" He was scowling at me again. It was rather off-putting.

Even though my face was composed and my voice was steady, a treacherous little tear ran down my cheek. I tasted salt, but I ignored it. I hoped he would do the same. "But I wouldn't change it for the world," I said, giving him a helpless shrug. "All this time we've endured together… it means something. To both of us. It's a pain in certain parts of the body that ladies shouldn't mention… but I wouldn't change it. I don't want things to change."

At this, a new look dawned across Inuyasha's face, like he'd just figured out what on earth we were talking about. "Right! I don't want things to change either."

He was so stupid.

"But they have!" I snapped, my face contorting into something that probably wasn't lovely. "Things change! People _change, _Inuyasha! There's no preventing it, and whether we like it or not, _we _have changed!"

"How?" he cried, growing alarmed.

"We're not kids anymore!" I threw my flowers down and stomped a foot, almost in defiance of what I'd just claimed. "I'm a woman – and you – you're this weird man-child thing that refuses to grow up – but it's time you did! Because it's going to be _your_ decision, Inuyasha."

He was so confused, it was almost endearing. "What's going to be my decision?" he asked, clearly lost.

"Whether or not we get married," I replied simply.

His mouth dropped open, and he gaped at me in so much horror that I wondered if he'd actually seen a youkai behind me. But no. That was just his knee-jerk reaction to talk of marriage. His good old temper overrode his shock eventually. "_My _decision! Why the hell does it have to be _my _decision!"

"Because I don't care anymore." I said stiffly. "For people like us, marriage has very little to do with love and _everything _to do with property and power. We don't have to like each other to get married. So I for one don't care. It's up to you."

I watched him as closely at he watched me. From the unnerved glint in his eye, I could see he suspected a trap of some kind. He had every right to be suspicious.

"You're saying… you want to get married?" he asked slowly.

I wouldn't make it easy for him. "Only if you want to," I said, examining my nails.

He frowned. "But I don't."

My stomach dropped out.

"I'm not marrying a mousy twit of a girl who obviously can't stand to be around me," he spat, circling me. "Is that why you've been so ridiculously miserable these past few days? Because the thought of being married to me makes you shrivel up like an old woman?" He moved out of sight behind me, and I heard the tearing of grass and plants. Before I could turn to see what he was up to, a cold hand had been shoved down the back of my kimono. My shoulders went up and I squeaked. Grass trickled down my spine.

Inuyasha moved in front of me again. "I'm not marrying a 'woman' who would rather avoid me than confront me. Not one that mopes around in fields and asks confusing questions." He poked me hard in the shoulder. The jolt made the grass slide to the small of my back where it itched intolerably. I wondered how many bugs were now in my clothes. "Not one that-"

I shoved him back. Hard. I glared at him mutely as he stared straight back at me in a calculating way. His hands came up and he pushed me again, making me stumble back. I retaliated by throwing my whole weight forward to send him staggering.

"You're talking like I care if you want me or not," I said hotly. I knew my cheeks were burning and my hair had come loose to hang across my face in swaths. "I was simply demonstrating the fact that _I _was the mature one. I know that we will be married one day, whether we like it or not, and it's simply up to you to grow up and decide if it will be sooner rather than later. It's not like I've suddenly fallen in love with you or anything."

The last sentence came out a little awkwardly. Anyone else with more than two brain cells would have seen what a blatant lie it was and realised my true meaning. But Inuyasha wasn't graced in the mental department, so I hoped it had flown straight over his head. Certainly his expression didn't give away much.

"You're right," he said finally. "We are going to get married. We've always known that."

"It doesn't mean anything," I told him quietly. "We'll only be married in name. Once it's over, I can go home. I won't have to come back next Autumn either. We'll get a nice long break from each other." And in that time, maybe I would be able to put Inuyasha out of mind and learn to fall for someone else – someone who didn't hate me. Maybe I could get Hojo back once my mother was appeased with the marriage. "We'll both just get on with our lives at last. And it's not like you're shackled to me – there's nothing preventing you from getting a mistress."

He frowned.

"If you're thinking about Kikyo, forget it," I said sharply. "She's a _miko_."

"I wasn't thinking about that!" he snapped. "I was thinking about… other stuff."

I rolled my eyes. "Marriage is in our best interests if you think about it. No more Autumn bane. No more overbearing parents. Our lands united as one. And we don't even have to kiss."

Inuyasha refused to meet my eyes. "Except we will…"

"What?" I asked.

"Kiss. We will have to kiss. At some point. And do more than that." At my clueless look, it was his turn to roll his eyes. "You have to give an heir."

"Oh! Yes – I know that!" I exploded, my face hotter than ever. "But not for ten or twenty years at least. Don't start getting ahead of yourself. You haven't even agreed to marry me yet."

He sighed and shook his head. "What brought this on?" he asked me, genuinely confused. "Why are you suddenly so willing to do this?"

I shrugged. "I grew up," I informed him. "I'm not thinking about myself anymore. I'm thinking of what's best for everyone – including you. You don't want me here and you think I'm always in your way. It's obvious. So marry me and then just forget about me. It's what you want, isn't it?"

"I suppose…" he muttered to his chest.

I inhaled deeply, drawing myself up with dignity whilst trying to ignore the grass tickling my back. "So… shall we get married?"

He glanced at me. "I told you. I don't want to marry a mousy twit."

So I kicked him right then and there in the shin. There was no point pulling your punches with this boy as he viewed stab wounds the way others viewed a splinter, so I didn't hold back when I aimed the kick. The result was a delicious gasp and a recoiling hanyou. He fell back onto the grass and clutched his leg in what could only have been melodramatic agony. I folded my arms, letting him know that I wasn't falling for his theatrics.

Then he did something bewildering.

He looked up at me and grinned. "I'll marry _you_ though."

I stared, completely at a loss. What on earth did that mean? "What on earth does that mean?"

"I don't care if you hate me, Kagome." He got to his feet, making a show of wincing and leaning on his 'injured' leg. "Just don't do that passive-aggressive shit. If I piss you off, I want you to punch me and kick me until you feel better. I don't know what I did to make you angry this time, but don't act this way again. It's weird."

A slow smile crept across my face. I suddenly felt strangely serene, like a warm breeze had arrived to sweep the black clouds away. It was a sunny day and there was grass in my kimono. There was no better feeling. "I don't hate you, Inuyasha," I said with an easy laugh. "I love you."

* * *

_:Inuyasha:_

A wild horse could have kicked me in the chest, and it wouldn't have winded me more than Kagome had just done. I tried to form a suitable, intelligent response but my mind drew a blank. I made a funny noise in the back of my throat as I continued to gape at her, and she smiled at me.

Eventually I said something, but I fear it wasn't the most suitable or intelligent. "You're joking, right?"

She wrinkled her nose slightly. "It would be a bit tasteless, don't you think?"

"Extremely," I agreed.

"I'm not joking," she said, shaking her head slowly. "I think I'm sick or something, because you've been nothing but an ass to me since the day we met, but I still love you." She gave herself a shake. "But, that's not important."

"_Not important!_" I screeched. "You're _insane_, woman!"

"Yes, I know," she sighed, waving a hand absently. "But we're going to marry, aren't we?"

I seemed to recall agreeing to that. "Yes…" I murmured dumbly.

"This Autumn?" she asked.

"Sure." If she'd asked for a golden carp on a silver platter at that moment, I would have agreed to fetch it for her. I was suddenly very pliable. I wasn't sure I liked the sensation.

"Good." She beamed at me. "Then we should be free of each other by Winter."

"Fabulous."

"I think so too." She picked up her skirts and marched past me. Her flowery scent drifted over me in her wake. "I'll go tell my mother to start making arrangements. I'm sure this news will perk her right up." She suddenly came to a stop and looked back at me with concern. "Inuyasha?"

"Yes?" My hands fidgeted, sweeping back my hair one second before pressing it over my mouth. I wasn't sure what to do with myself. I didn't even know how I was supposed to stand. I seemed very awkward all of a sudden.

"You won't tell anyone what I said, will you?" She grimaced. "It's embarrassing enough that you know."

"Oh no – no, no!" I gave an awkward sort of wave of reassurance that somehow mutated into a very non-nonchalant scratch of the head. I was a gibbering puppet of a man, feeling as if someone unseen was pulling randomly at my strings. "Uh… it's fine. Don't worry." I said that, but I myself was beginning to hyperventilate.

Maybe she noticed, because she looked very concerned. "Are you ok?"

"Fine." I would have sounded more convincing if I hadn't wheezed the word out.

"Right."

I had no idea what was running through her head as she sashayed (that was the only way to describe that vivacious slink), but I knew what was running through mine.

_Oh. My. God._

_

* * *

_

_:Kagome:_

The grass was unbearably itchy down my back, making me wiggle slightly as I walked away, but nothing in the world could have gotten me down. I'd just laid my hand on the table and put my heart on the line and said what I'd been terrified of feeling for the last ten years. But it was _so _worth it just to see the look on his face. Not even love could remove my sadistic desire to see that rat squirm like a worm on a hot plate, and nothing in the world would ever top the way he'd wheezed.

But by the time I reached the old oak tree, I was crouched down and moaning in horror. "_Oh… my… god…"_

What had I done!

Of course, there was no going back now… unless I ambushed Inuyasha on his way back to the castle and beat him over the head with a rock until he'd forgotten the entire conversation. But I'd already tried to do that once when I was eleven, and since it hadn't worked then, there wasn't much reason why it should work now.

So instead I assured myself that this was _good._ This was _healthy_. Admitting the feelings was the first step to recovery. Pretty soon I would be a married woman and on my way home to do what a wife did best: nothing in the quietest way possible. Possibly in time I might forget my feelings. I never really had believed in the 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' nonsense. Absence in the past often only served to galvanise the ugliness that was Inuyasha's soul. It was time together that had messed me up.

The marriage was the best option. For everyone.

* * *

_AN: _Now you'll have to wait another two years for the next chapter:gets flailed: Ouch…


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